Reposting - Light is Nothing without Darkness

Sep 10, 2011 13:07

Reposted from http://hierath.wordpress.com/ - you are welcome to comment there or here :) I'm free and easy like that ( Read more... )

blogging, writing

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Comments 10

the_faery_queen September 10 2011, 12:49:39 UTC
not torture. dexter never tortures. he just kills. and he kills bad guys only. and its cos he's messed up (he saw his mother chainsawed to death as a child and sat in her blood for hours until found) his brother, on the other hand, also a serial killer, killed anyone in fun ways.

just had to say that. dexter is an anti hero really. but part of what he does, the killing ruthlessly, is chilling and would be evil if done by someone without a weird moral code

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hierath September 11 2011, 08:12:17 UTC
I really need to watch it at some point. Everyone keeps telling me how good it is. I'm terrible at watching series :)

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the_faery_queen September 11 2011, 08:46:50 UTC
dexgter, the borgias and true blood :) all excellent fun.

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cornerofmadness September 11 2011, 02:52:33 UTC
it's the not making them too over the top that is difficult

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hierath September 11 2011, 08:22:00 UTC
That's true. If they start drumming their fingers together Mr Burns style or launching into "Muhahahahaha!", you've probably gone too far. In a way, it's more shocking to have them do something unspeakable, very simply, as if it's nothing they wouldn't normally do. Without restorting to mustache-twirling, cape twitching, or tying girls to railway lines.

One of the most unsettling TV dramas I've ever seen was "Conspiracy", with Kenneth Branagh :

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266425/

which was a dramatisation of the Wannsee conference, where the logistics for the Holocaust were hammered out. Nothing happened, hardly anyone shouted, it was mainly a group of men sitting round a table eating dinner and calmly discussing how they were going to carry out the Holocaust the same way you would talk about your pension plan. If you want a study in non over-the-top pure evil, it's worth a watch, but you might want a stiff drink and a shower afterwards...

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cornerofmadness September 11 2011, 18:15:48 UTC
my problem is I enjoy writing about sociopaths who are often not all that normal but yeah it's a tightrope walk

I don't know that movie. i'll have to look it up

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ozma914 September 11 2011, 08:51:52 UTC
Two things I've heard about villains that said a lot to me about how to write them:

The first is that Darth Vader didn't become really interesting until the end of "The Empire Strikes Back", when we started learning about who he really was.

The second is that most villains don't think they *are* villains.

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hierath September 11 2011, 14:26:10 UTC
Exactly. Good example of back story. No one would care about Darth Vader dying at the end of RoTJ if he didn't have a back story. It makes him a rounded character, not a cartoon robot.

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jennygordon September 14 2011, 07:58:11 UTC
hierath September 14 2011, 08:38:24 UTC
Nor me :)

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