Both were made up. It's sort of... You know faustian bargains, right? Power/wish/whatever in exchange for your soul. Well, honestly when done with protagonists, they're a bit of a joke, you know the protagonist is going to get out of them, and unlike an enemy, where their might be some cost, Faustian bargains almost never do. They tend to get out in two forms. A, protagonist finds true love/unselfish use of powers, escape clause activated, yay. B protagonist is clever enough to find some loophope, gets out of contract, yay.
And this bugs me. This is so common that it drains tension, there is none of the real angst, gravitos of doom upon making such bargains, which makes the story less interesting for me. So yeah, I wrote up this short drabble, as a sort of 'anti-story' to the common version.
Neat idea and presentation. I'm sympathetic to the idea that it's a hackneyed plot device, unless we're talking about "The Devil and Daniel Webster" in which case I'll defend it to the death. ;)
I'd love to see a longer plot explore this type of thing. Neil Gaiman could probably do something really kick-butt with it. Of course, the entire cast would pretty much have to be dead already.
I know how you feel. As much as I make fun of it, I loved Grimm Grimmore's take on it. I suspect everyone has a favorite one, and that's part of why they remain so popular. But I've always been somewhat uncomfortable with it, and wanted to do something. But I never had the larger plot to go with it, hence the write up.
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Both were made up. It's sort of... You know faustian bargains, right? Power/wish/whatever in exchange for your soul. Well, honestly when done with protagonists, they're a bit of a joke, you know the protagonist is going to get out of them, and unlike an enemy, where their might be some cost, Faustian bargains almost never do. They tend to get out in two forms. A, protagonist finds true love/unselfish use of powers, escape clause activated, yay. B protagonist is clever enough to find some loophope, gets out of contract, yay.
And this bugs me. This is so common that it drains tension, there is none of the real angst, gravitos of doom upon making such bargains, which makes the story less interesting for me. So yeah, I wrote up this short drabble, as a sort of 'anti-story' to the common version.
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I'd love to see a longer plot explore this type of thing. Neil Gaiman could probably do something really kick-butt with it. Of course, the entire cast would pretty much have to be dead already.
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