Competence porn, character expectations, and the Houses of Cards

[mrissa]

Spoilers for the first season of House of Cards in UK and US versions. I don’t know how to do a cut-tag on my wordpress journal if in fact such a thing is possible. So seriously. Spoilers. If you care, back away from the post.

Francis Urquhart and Frank Underwood have some key things in common, due to the one series being based on the other.

Comments

[nancylebov]

This is reminding me of the bit where movie Aragorn cuts off the Mouth of Sauron's head, whereas the real Aragorn overawes the Mouth of Sauron. Indeed we live in degenerate days.

[sartorias]

I think of that as a cheat--like making the subsidiary characters really stoopid in order to make your protag brilliant without really working at it.

[mrissa]

Yes, I find that unsatisfying also.

[desperance]

It's certainly not a poke at the Tories - the guy who wrote the original novel is or was a Tory MP (under another name), and a complete loyalist. I think Jeffrey Archer was his role-model: be a Tory, be in government and use all his contacts to make millions on the side by writing promotable filmable thrillers that are not as clever as they want you to think.

[alecaustin]

Obviously I can't speak to the original author's intent, given Chaz's comment re: him being a Tory loyalist, but I feel like in the TV versions, the murders are there for the same reason puppy- and kitten-kicking get deployed: they're the cue that the character with all the good lines who is talking to the camera is a bad bad person and that the show does not endorse their Machiavellian scheming. Even though the murder undermines said scheming and makes it less effective, because it gives them a way to get caught out.

I mean, arguably it's a tension-crank that can be ratcheted up - someone knows the secret! But it's cheap, and a sop to the folks who tend to conflate "protagonist" and "hero".

[swan_tower]

This strikes me as a very good explanation.

[blue_hat_guru]

Concur.

[mrissa]

Thanks, I'm entirely aware of how to do a lj-cut when I am posting directly to lj. But mostly I'm not, I'm posting to my main blog and mirroring it to lj.

[blue_hat_guru]

Oops. Somehow my eyes skipped right over "wordpress" up there. Sorry.