At Last, The Essay
I am nearly to the angsty chapter of Outlaw Security, but in the meantime, I have finally finished my Trickster Essay.
Hannibal Heyes as Trickster
Human culture has always contained trickster characters. No matter what part of the world you visit, or how far back in our history you search, you will find the trickster waiting for you. The trickster is difficult to define. Lewis Hyde called him a boundary-crosser. Jung believed that this character was an archetype, along with such characters as wise old man or woman, great mother or father, child, devil, and hero.
Paul Radin defines the trickster as "at one and the same time creator and destroyer, giver and negator, he who dupes others, and who is always duped himself ... He knows neither good nor evil, yet he is responsible for both. He possesses no values, moral or social, is at the mercy of his passions and appetites, yet through his actions all values come into being" (The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology).
Trickster characters are almost always male, though there are a good number of female tricksters among various cultures. They break the rules of gods and nature. Usually, their breaking or bending these rules has positive results (often unintentionally). Tricksters bend and break rules by cunning, tricks, and thievery. They can be witty or foolish, or both at once. Often, tricksters are funny even when performing sacred or important cultural tasks.
"No figure in literature, oral or written, baffles us quite as much as trickster. He is positively identified with creative powers, often bringing such defining features of culture as fire or basic food, and yet he constantly behaves in the most antisocial manner we can imagine. Although we laugh at him for his troubles and his foolishness and are embarrassed by his promiscuity, his creative cleverness amazes us and keeps alive the possibility of transcending the social restrictions we regularly encounter." (Barbara Babcock-Abrahams, "A Tolerated Margin of Mess: The Trickster and His Tales Reconsidered").
Tricksters perform six basic social functions, according to William J. Hynes ("Mapping the Characteristic of Mythic Tricksters: A Heuristic Guide"). He claims these offer "a helpful map, heuristic guide, and common template through which to become better aware of the complexities of specific tricksters within particular belief systems."
1. The trickster is ambiguous and anomalous
Tricksters are on the edge, or just past existing borders of normality, social classifications, and categories. The trickster character is often "outlawish, outlandish, outrageous, out-of-bounds, and out-of-order" (Hynes).
Tricksters serve to show us the middle ground between traditional "opposites" such as life and death, order and chaos, and sacred and profane.
2. The trickster is a deceiver and trick-player
Tricksters exist to trick. This lying, cheating, and deceiving may be cunning, foolish, or malicious. Once a trick is set into motion, it often takes on a life of it's own, and can turn on the trickster and trap him as well as his intended victim.
The trickster is the primary cause of disruptions, disorders, misfortunes, and improprieties in human myth. Often, the trickster not only crosses boundaries, but also creates them.
3. The trickster is a shape-shifter
The trickster is known for changing his bodily appearance to work his tricks. These shape-shifts can be as simple as changing costumes, or as complex as shifting genders. Native Americans refer to tricksters as two-spirit beings; they are sometimes depicted as being hermaphroditic. Tricksters are often associated with same-sex acts, or with transgender encounters. They cross the boundaries between human and animal and between male and female.
4. The trickster is a situation invertor
"The trickster often turns a place of safety into a place of danger and back again. He can turn a bad situation into a good one, and then back into a bad one…the trickster is often the official ritual profaner of beliefs. Profaning or inverting social beliefs brings into sharp relief just how much a society values these beliefs" (Hynes).
When the trickster is involved, what prevails is toppled, and what is outside turns inside. Barbara Babcock-Abrahams believes that "doings which are undoings, reordering through disordering epitomize trickster and are the essence of cultural critique."
5. The trickster is a messenger and imitator of the gods
The trickster often brings essential gifts, usually by bending or breaking some sort of taboo. "Within this process, the trickster often seems to operate within a perpetual bubble of immunity that protects him from the full weight of retribution" (Hynes).
Tricksters defy the gods and nature, stealing what is needed. In this case, the cunning and trickery is turned against the divine powers, and used to benefit human culture. They also invent things: tricksters are said to have developed musical instruments and even fire. Some cultures hold that tricksters created the world. Often, the trickster's deeds result in the world being the way it is.
6. The trickster is a sacred and lewd bricoleur
"The bricoleur is a tinker or fix-it person, noted for his ingenuity in transforming anything at hand in order to form a creative solution. The trickster manifests a distinctive transformative ability: he can find the lewd in the scared and the sacred in the lewd, and new life from both" (Hynes).
Tricksters seem compelled to violate taboos: sexual, gastronomic, scatological, and cultural. Native American myth often portrays the trickster with an enormous phallus (Kokopelli figures in the American Southwest often show him using his elongated penis as a flute), and trickster tales feature jokes that revolve around flatulence, feces, or lewd acts.
David Leeming notes that the trickster is "sexually overactive, irresponsible, and amoral. But it is that very phallicism that signifies his essential creativity" (The World of Myth: An Anthology). Barbara Babcock-Abrahams says the trickster "steals, lies, and lusts, and in the process shapes and endows the world as we know it."
William J. Hynes notes that some tricksters only serve one or two of these social functions, while others perform all of them. The more modern trickster myths often portray the character as the deceiver and situation-inverter, while older tales are more usually concerned with the shape-shifter and lewd clown.
Although he is clever, the trickster often becomes trapped within his own trick. He is the wise fool, or the foolish animal. Trickster myths frequently contain a moral, which is humorously shown when the clever trick backfires.
There are many forms of trickster, from Native American coyote or raven, to the human picaro of Europe. Picaros, "roguish boys and young men, emerged in the folklore and literature of romance cultures, most notably in Spain. Their social position as pariahs and outcasts, their avocation for travel, and their insatiable thirst for adventures of every kind gave them the liberty to explore their society and expose all its vices and contradictions" (Enrique R. Lamadrid, "The Rogue's Progress: Journeys of the Picaro from Oral Tradition to Contemporary Chicano Literature of New Mexico").
A complete list of Native American tricksters is nearly impossible to compile, as many tribes have lost their oral traditions and no longer speak their original languages. Some of the better known include Coyote, Raven, Kokopelli, Rabbit (or Hare), and Iktomi. The sacred clowns of Pueblo culture are tricksters.
Other trickster characters include Puck (Celtic), Anansi (African), Till Eulenspiegel (German), Leprechauns (Irish), Set (Egyptian), Loki (Norse), Robin Hood (English), Eris (Greek), Maui (Polynesian), and Papa Legba (Voodoo). The Chinese Monkey King and Japanese Kitsune (fox spirits) are tricksters, as are the Arabian genies (and Sinbad).
We are still inventing trickster characters today. Bre'r Rabbit, Bugs Bunny, and El-ahrairah (from Watership Down) are aspects of Rabbit/Hare. Aang from Avatar, Jareth from Labyrinth, and Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean are all trickster characters, as is Pippi Longstocking and Bart Simpson. Most fairytale "younger sons" who win the day by wit and cunning are tricksters.
Hannibal Heyes is another one.
Heyes is a blatant example of trickster, even as played by Roger Davis. As Radin said, "he who dupes others, and who is always duped himself ... He knows neither good nor evil, yet he is responsible for both." Heyes is eternally optimistic about his cons, yet constantly getting trapped by his own good ideas. Note that this does not contradict the fact that Heyes is a master strategist. Tricks are different from jobs -- honest or dishonest ones.
Hannibal Heyes is neither totally good nor totally evil. In a Dungeons and Dragon game, we'd say he was chaotic good, which means that he likes things to be shaken up, but his basic morality falls more on the good side than on the evil. We see his difficulty deciding to interfere with the troubles of others (for example, in "How to Rob a Bank ..." when Curry jumps in to "save" the damsel in distress), and even to save their lives ("Wrong Train to Brimstone," when Heyes would "like to think on it" before deciding if they should warn the Devil's Hole gang about the trap).
Heyes loves to trick others, yet he often finds himself in trouble because of it. And as all tricksters, he then uses his cunning and trickery to get himself back out of it, a sadder and wiser trickster! This begins in the pilot episode, when he (and Curry) pretend to be "in the banking business," which lands him the job at the bank, which causes him to "see green spots" and be tortured by the sight of all that money he couldn't steal!
Throughout the series, Heyes tries over and over to convince bounty hunters that he and the Kid are just two men who "happen to resemble Hannibal Heyes and that other fellow." This never works, and he and Curry always end up having to come up with an alternate plan to get out of their situation. Of course, being a trickster, Heyes always does come up with an alternate plan, but being a trickster, he never seems to learn that the "we're not really them" ploy isn't going to work.
One of the episodes that showcases the trickster side of Heyes the best is "The Day They Hung Kid Curry." Heyes has the bright idea to pose as the fake Kid's cousin. This puts him at the mercy of Philpotts, who knows damn well the real Kid Curry's cousin would have proclaimed him a fake immediately. Heyes is then forced to come up with plan after plan to try to save the fake Curry, and ends up dragging both the real Kid and Silky into the shenanigans. In the end, he manages to escape, but only after the real killer is brought in. This is a typical trickster "cunning plan."
While he does not create in the sense that a trickster god would create, Hannibal Heyes does bring important things to the people he meets in each episode. Whether providing a woman with the money to move back east, and at the same time serving justice upon a man who betrayed his fellow bank robbers ("Exit from Wickenburg") or helping a friend regain money which was stolen from her father ("Dreadful Sorry, Clementine"); Heyes leaves the good people he meets better off, and the evil people sadder (but, hopefully, wiser).
Considering William J. Hynes' social function list, we can see that Heyes falls under five of the six (within canon), and I question the sixth.
1. Heyes is ambiguous and anomalous.
He is certainly "outlawish, outlandish, outrageous, out-of-bounds, and out-of-order" I cannot think of a better description of a man who robs banks and trains, and is considered half of "the two most successful outlaws in the history of the West."
2. Heyes is a deceiver and trick player.
This is the definition of Hannibal Heyes. He is the one with the silver tongue, "my partner, who does the tricks," the one with all the plans. The show's premise relies on the fact that Heyes is the cunning half of the team.
3. Heyes is a shape-shifter.
No, Hannibal Heyes cannot turn into animals or women, but he frequently dons clothing and mannerisms to become a different man. When Heyes disguises himself, it's a total disguise. Not only his appearance changes, but also his mannerisms, his way of walking, his voice -- he shifts from Heyes to another body.
4. Heyes is a situation inverter.
When Hannibal Heyes is involved, things are already topsy-turvy. Here is a bank robber masquerading as a good citizen. When Mrs. Fielding claims that he and the Kid are "typical examples of the Western man," Heyes can only laugh.
Heyes often creates chaos, but also always resolves that chaos into a positive outcome -- as Barbara Babcock-Abrahams puts it, "doings which are undoings, (and) reordering through disordering." Heyes tosses everything into the air like a deck of cards and rearranges it into five pat hands.
5. Heyes is a bricoleur.
We don't get to see any lewdness on a 1970's family television sitcom, so that bit is right out. However, we can certainly imagine that if Kid Curry gets as many woman as he does during the show, his partner with the silver tongue would get at least as many, and possibly more.
Hannibal Heyes, though, is the epitome of the bricoleur. He is the MacGuyver of the Old West. Heyes is, as Hynes puts it, "noted for his ingenuity in transforming anything at hand in order to form a creative solution." No matter how little he and the Kid have, Heyes can make something work. In "Jailbreak at Junction City," they ride into town broke, yet Heyes manages to trick the bartender out of ten dollars.
6. Heyes as messenger of the gods?
I often question this one. Heyes and Curry are successful outlaws, yet something convinces them to try to go straight. "Is this a religious tract?" Curry asks the "little old lady from Boston" in the pilot.
Can we see manipulation from behind the scenes here? Are the gods, in fact, using the trickster to bring order where an honest citizen would not be able to? Is Hannibal Heyes, in fact, "on a mission from God"?
Heyes does bring essential gifts, often by trickery or thievery (gambling counts as trickery). Perhaps Hannibal Heyes fits all six of Hynes' classifications.
Lamadrid's description of the Spanish picaro fits Hannibal Heyes to a T: a roguish young man, an outlaw, with an avocation for travel, an insatiable thirst for adventures of every kind. Heyes is certainly a picaro as well as a bricoleur.
Hannibal Heyes can certainly be added to the list of modern Trickster characters.
Next time: a slight rewrite on Outlaw Security -- I'm not happy with the way I wrote the first job. I'm going back and re-doing it with more emphasis on the sneakiness and plotting.
Hannibal Heyes as Trickster
Human culture has always contained trickster characters. No matter what part of the world you visit, or how far back in our history you search, you will find the trickster waiting for you. The trickster is difficult to define. Lewis Hyde called him a boundary-crosser. Jung believed that this character was an archetype, along with such characters as wise old man or woman, great mother or father, child, devil, and hero.
Paul Radin defines the trickster as "at one and the same time creator and destroyer, giver and negator, he who dupes others, and who is always duped himself ... He knows neither good nor evil, yet he is responsible for both. He possesses no values, moral or social, is at the mercy of his passions and appetites, yet through his actions all values come into being" (The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology).
Trickster characters are almost always male, though there are a good number of female tricksters among various cultures. They break the rules of gods and nature. Usually, their breaking or bending these rules has positive results (often unintentionally). Tricksters bend and break rules by cunning, tricks, and thievery. They can be witty or foolish, or both at once. Often, tricksters are funny even when performing sacred or important cultural tasks.
"No figure in literature, oral or written, baffles us quite as much as trickster. He is positively identified with creative powers, often bringing such defining features of culture as fire or basic food, and yet he constantly behaves in the most antisocial manner we can imagine. Although we laugh at him for his troubles and his foolishness and are embarrassed by his promiscuity, his creative cleverness amazes us and keeps alive the possibility of transcending the social restrictions we regularly encounter." (Barbara Babcock-Abrahams, "A Tolerated Margin of Mess: The Trickster and His Tales Reconsidered").
Tricksters perform six basic social functions, according to William J. Hynes ("Mapping the Characteristic of Mythic Tricksters: A Heuristic Guide"). He claims these offer "a helpful map, heuristic guide, and common template through which to become better aware of the complexities of specific tricksters within particular belief systems."
1. The trickster is ambiguous and anomalous
Tricksters are on the edge, or just past existing borders of normality, social classifications, and categories. The trickster character is often "outlawish, outlandish, outrageous, out-of-bounds, and out-of-order" (Hynes).
Tricksters serve to show us the middle ground between traditional "opposites" such as life and death, order and chaos, and sacred and profane.
2. The trickster is a deceiver and trick-player
Tricksters exist to trick. This lying, cheating, and deceiving may be cunning, foolish, or malicious. Once a trick is set into motion, it often takes on a life of it's own, and can turn on the trickster and trap him as well as his intended victim.
The trickster is the primary cause of disruptions, disorders, misfortunes, and improprieties in human myth. Often, the trickster not only crosses boundaries, but also creates them.
3. The trickster is a shape-shifter
The trickster is known for changing his bodily appearance to work his tricks. These shape-shifts can be as simple as changing costumes, or as complex as shifting genders. Native Americans refer to tricksters as two-spirit beings; they are sometimes depicted as being hermaphroditic. Tricksters are often associated with same-sex acts, or with transgender encounters. They cross the boundaries between human and animal and between male and female.
4. The trickster is a situation invertor
"The trickster often turns a place of safety into a place of danger and back again. He can turn a bad situation into a good one, and then back into a bad one…the trickster is often the official ritual profaner of beliefs. Profaning or inverting social beliefs brings into sharp relief just how much a society values these beliefs" (Hynes).
When the trickster is involved, what prevails is toppled, and what is outside turns inside. Barbara Babcock-Abrahams believes that "doings which are undoings, reordering through disordering epitomize trickster and are the essence of cultural critique."
5. The trickster is a messenger and imitator of the gods
The trickster often brings essential gifts, usually by bending or breaking some sort of taboo. "Within this process, the trickster often seems to operate within a perpetual bubble of immunity that protects him from the full weight of retribution" (Hynes).
Tricksters defy the gods and nature, stealing what is needed. In this case, the cunning and trickery is turned against the divine powers, and used to benefit human culture. They also invent things: tricksters are said to have developed musical instruments and even fire. Some cultures hold that tricksters created the world. Often, the trickster's deeds result in the world being the way it is.
6. The trickster is a sacred and lewd bricoleur
"The bricoleur is a tinker or fix-it person, noted for his ingenuity in transforming anything at hand in order to form a creative solution. The trickster manifests a distinctive transformative ability: he can find the lewd in the scared and the sacred in the lewd, and new life from both" (Hynes).
Tricksters seem compelled to violate taboos: sexual, gastronomic, scatological, and cultural. Native American myth often portrays the trickster with an enormous phallus (Kokopelli figures in the American Southwest often show him using his elongated penis as a flute), and trickster tales feature jokes that revolve around flatulence, feces, or lewd acts.
David Leeming notes that the trickster is "sexually overactive, irresponsible, and amoral. But it is that very phallicism that signifies his essential creativity" (The World of Myth: An Anthology). Barbara Babcock-Abrahams says the trickster "steals, lies, and lusts, and in the process shapes and endows the world as we know it."
William J. Hynes notes that some tricksters only serve one or two of these social functions, while others perform all of them. The more modern trickster myths often portray the character as the deceiver and situation-inverter, while older tales are more usually concerned with the shape-shifter and lewd clown.
Although he is clever, the trickster often becomes trapped within his own trick. He is the wise fool, or the foolish animal. Trickster myths frequently contain a moral, which is humorously shown when the clever trick backfires.
There are many forms of trickster, from Native American coyote or raven, to the human picaro of Europe. Picaros, "roguish boys and young men, emerged in the folklore and literature of romance cultures, most notably in Spain. Their social position as pariahs and outcasts, their avocation for travel, and their insatiable thirst for adventures of every kind gave them the liberty to explore their society and expose all its vices and contradictions" (Enrique R. Lamadrid, "The Rogue's Progress: Journeys of the Picaro from Oral Tradition to Contemporary Chicano Literature of New Mexico").
A complete list of Native American tricksters is nearly impossible to compile, as many tribes have lost their oral traditions and no longer speak their original languages. Some of the better known include Coyote, Raven, Kokopelli, Rabbit (or Hare), and Iktomi. The sacred clowns of Pueblo culture are tricksters.
Other trickster characters include Puck (Celtic), Anansi (African), Till Eulenspiegel (German), Leprechauns (Irish), Set (Egyptian), Loki (Norse), Robin Hood (English), Eris (Greek), Maui (Polynesian), and Papa Legba (Voodoo). The Chinese Monkey King and Japanese Kitsune (fox spirits) are tricksters, as are the Arabian genies (and Sinbad).
We are still inventing trickster characters today. Bre'r Rabbit, Bugs Bunny, and El-ahrairah (from Watership Down) are aspects of Rabbit/Hare. Aang from Avatar, Jareth from Labyrinth, and Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean are all trickster characters, as is Pippi Longstocking and Bart Simpson. Most fairytale "younger sons" who win the day by wit and cunning are tricksters.
Hannibal Heyes is another one.
Heyes is a blatant example of trickster, even as played by Roger Davis. As Radin said, "he who dupes others, and who is always duped himself ... He knows neither good nor evil, yet he is responsible for both." Heyes is eternally optimistic about his cons, yet constantly getting trapped by his own good ideas. Note that this does not contradict the fact that Heyes is a master strategist. Tricks are different from jobs -- honest or dishonest ones.
Hannibal Heyes is neither totally good nor totally evil. In a Dungeons and Dragon game, we'd say he was chaotic good, which means that he likes things to be shaken up, but his basic morality falls more on the good side than on the evil. We see his difficulty deciding to interfere with the troubles of others (for example, in "How to Rob a Bank ..." when Curry jumps in to "save" the damsel in distress), and even to save their lives ("Wrong Train to Brimstone," when Heyes would "like to think on it" before deciding if they should warn the Devil's Hole gang about the trap).
Heyes loves to trick others, yet he often finds himself in trouble because of it. And as all tricksters, he then uses his cunning and trickery to get himself back out of it, a sadder and wiser trickster! This begins in the pilot episode, when he (and Curry) pretend to be "in the banking business," which lands him the job at the bank, which causes him to "see green spots" and be tortured by the sight of all that money he couldn't steal!
Throughout the series, Heyes tries over and over to convince bounty hunters that he and the Kid are just two men who "happen to resemble Hannibal Heyes and that other fellow." This never works, and he and Curry always end up having to come up with an alternate plan to get out of their situation. Of course, being a trickster, Heyes always does come up with an alternate plan, but being a trickster, he never seems to learn that the "we're not really them" ploy isn't going to work.
One of the episodes that showcases the trickster side of Heyes the best is "The Day They Hung Kid Curry." Heyes has the bright idea to pose as the fake Kid's cousin. This puts him at the mercy of Philpotts, who knows damn well the real Kid Curry's cousin would have proclaimed him a fake immediately. Heyes is then forced to come up with plan after plan to try to save the fake Curry, and ends up dragging both the real Kid and Silky into the shenanigans. In the end, he manages to escape, but only after the real killer is brought in. This is a typical trickster "cunning plan."
While he does not create in the sense that a trickster god would create, Hannibal Heyes does bring important things to the people he meets in each episode. Whether providing a woman with the money to move back east, and at the same time serving justice upon a man who betrayed his fellow bank robbers ("Exit from Wickenburg") or helping a friend regain money which was stolen from her father ("Dreadful Sorry, Clementine"); Heyes leaves the good people he meets better off, and the evil people sadder (but, hopefully, wiser).
Considering William J. Hynes' social function list, we can see that Heyes falls under five of the six (within canon), and I question the sixth.
1. Heyes is ambiguous and anomalous.
He is certainly "outlawish, outlandish, outrageous, out-of-bounds, and out-of-order" I cannot think of a better description of a man who robs banks and trains, and is considered half of "the two most successful outlaws in the history of the West."
2. Heyes is a deceiver and trick player.
This is the definition of Hannibal Heyes. He is the one with the silver tongue, "my partner, who does the tricks," the one with all the plans. The show's premise relies on the fact that Heyes is the cunning half of the team.
3. Heyes is a shape-shifter.
No, Hannibal Heyes cannot turn into animals or women, but he frequently dons clothing and mannerisms to become a different man. When Heyes disguises himself, it's a total disguise. Not only his appearance changes, but also his mannerisms, his way of walking, his voice -- he shifts from Heyes to another body.
4. Heyes is a situation inverter.
When Hannibal Heyes is involved, things are already topsy-turvy. Here is a bank robber masquerading as a good citizen. When Mrs. Fielding claims that he and the Kid are "typical examples of the Western man," Heyes can only laugh.
Heyes often creates chaos, but also always resolves that chaos into a positive outcome -- as Barbara Babcock-Abrahams puts it, "doings which are undoings, (and) reordering through disordering." Heyes tosses everything into the air like a deck of cards and rearranges it into five pat hands.
5. Heyes is a bricoleur.
We don't get to see any lewdness on a 1970's family television sitcom, so that bit is right out. However, we can certainly imagine that if Kid Curry gets as many woman as he does during the show, his partner with the silver tongue would get at least as many, and possibly more.
Hannibal Heyes, though, is the epitome of the bricoleur. He is the MacGuyver of the Old West. Heyes is, as Hynes puts it, "noted for his ingenuity in transforming anything at hand in order to form a creative solution." No matter how little he and the Kid have, Heyes can make something work. In "Jailbreak at Junction City," they ride into town broke, yet Heyes manages to trick the bartender out of ten dollars.
6. Heyes as messenger of the gods?
I often question this one. Heyes and Curry are successful outlaws, yet something convinces them to try to go straight. "Is this a religious tract?" Curry asks the "little old lady from Boston" in the pilot.
Can we see manipulation from behind the scenes here? Are the gods, in fact, using the trickster to bring order where an honest citizen would not be able to? Is Hannibal Heyes, in fact, "on a mission from God"?
Heyes does bring essential gifts, often by trickery or thievery (gambling counts as trickery). Perhaps Hannibal Heyes fits all six of Hynes' classifications.
Lamadrid's description of the Spanish picaro fits Hannibal Heyes to a T: a roguish young man, an outlaw, with an avocation for travel, an insatiable thirst for adventures of every kind. Heyes is certainly a picaro as well as a bricoleur.
Hannibal Heyes can certainly be added to the list of modern Trickster characters.
Next time: a slight rewrite on Outlaw Security -- I'm not happy with the way I wrote the first job. I'm going back and re-doing it with more emphasis on the sneakiness and plotting.