FINE-TUNING DURABILITY AND DURATION

 ...not all crossovers maintain the same levels of stature or charisma. For that reason, I find myself making a major distinction about whether or not the narrative icons within a crossover are HIGH in stature, LOW in stature, HIGH in charisma or LOW in charisma. One of the main determinants of a character's "high" scores in either stature or charisma is that of sheer *durability." Whether he's a character with just one narrative, like Ivanhoe, or with several, like Fu Manchu, the character may have greater stature or charisma due to his, her, or its role in popular culture. -- A CONVOCATION OF CROSSOVERS PT. 1.

Since typing the first part of this five-part essay series, I said very little about my use of the offhand term "durability." The other essays, however, generally imply that I judged the highness or lowness of icons' stature or charisma on the basis of quantitative escalation-- though I would only adapt that earlier term a few weeks later in December of 2021. For instance, in Part 2, I noted that the Golden Age character of Miss Victory had transferred her stature from a solo feature to that of the ensemble of the Bronze Age title FEMFORCE:

Thus the Golden Age character "Miss Victory," who lasted for about five years as a backup feature in an anthology comic, was "ret-conned" to stand alongside a bunch of newbie characters in the Americomics title FEMFORCE (which would later pursue many other similar public-domain revivals).

In contrast, in Part 3 I noted that The Blue Diamond was an example of a character who didn't accrue much stature, having had only two starring appearances. Also, the character of Magik, prior to joining the New Mutants ensemble, didn't get much stature by virtue of appearing in one four-issue mini-series.

In Part 4, I noted that I might not assign High Charisma to a villain-interaction between Joker and Catwoman, who'd only just been created, but that I definitely would in the first crossover of Joker and Penguin, who by the time of their meeting in 1944 had already logged in several appearances as Bat-foes.

And in Part 5, I gave examples of two narratives-- WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT and THE BOOKS OF MAGIC-- in which numerous Primes function as little more than background-characters to the featured Primes.

Now, all of the above examples depend on an idea of "duration," of how much narrative time a given icon has enjoyed as either a Prime or a Sub, either within a single narrative or in a series of linked narratives. This form of duration I henceforth subsume under the general concept of durability.   

Then, a week or two later, I wrote ESCALATION PROCLAMATION PT. 2, in which I formulated a term for the type of escalation depending on an icon's duration: Quantitative Escalation. But I also specified that another type of escalation could also take place with respect to a narrative assuming the nature of a cultural touchstone, as per the example of Walter Scott's IVANHOE, which was a single work with no additional installments. About a year and a half later, I would show in INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE STATURE PART 3 that qualitative vectors could also influence serial narratives: specifically, as to whether the characters of "Giant Man and the Wasp" were qualitatively more important in their AVENGERS appearances than in their solo feature.

So, though I did not see the distinction in 2021, the "durability" I was describing took two distinct forms:

Narrative Durability relates to how much time an icon occupies within a story, or series of stories.

Significant Durability relates to how much time an icon accrues in literary history, thanks to whatever the icon does or doesn't do that some sizable audience imbues with significance.

A further elaboration is that in some narratives, though a crossover between stature-icons may be relatively short within a story, that crossover can accrues greater significance because of its impact upon the audience. The crossover between Ivanhoe and the pre-existing icon of Robin Hood lasts only a few chapters in Scott's narrative. Yet even if the icons' time together has little Narrative Durability, their crossover possesses Significant Durability because Scott managed to relate his newly created hero to the ideals of the Lord of Sherwood, in such a way that many readers found that part of the story significant. 

The same significance applies to works outside the sphere of canonical literature. In the 1918 book THE GOLDEN SCORPION, Sax Rohmer pits his established detective Gaston Max against a new villain, The Scorpion. Only on a few pages does Rohmer establish that the new villain belongs to Fu Manchu's Si-Fan, and on one of those pages a witness describes an encounter between The Scorpion and his master, though the latter is not explicitly named. Since the Scorpion never appears again, and thus lacks Narrative Durability, the novel cannot be termed a villain-crossover. However, the established figures of Gaston Max and Fu Manchu sustain the crossover-vibe between their universes, even though the two of them never meet. And Significant Durability applies solely because the SCORPION narrative was an important development in the history of the touchstone character of Fu Manchu. But there was no such Significant Durability for Gaston Max, given that he faded from prominence and never, like Fu, became a cultural touchstone.

 

ASPIRIN FOR ANTHOLOGIES PT. 3

 At the end of 2020's EQUAL AND UNEQUAL VECTORS OF AUTHORIAL WILL PT. 2, I wrote:

The same dynamic also applies to those serials that often or always focus upon “guest stars”who never again appear in the series. Early installments of Will Eisner’s SPIRIT are structured like almost every other adventure-hero feature, in which the Spirit helps good people and vanquishes bad people. However, even in the earliest years Eisner sometimes devoted stories to one-shot characters who seemed to take center stage, in that their triumphs or tragedies received the most attention. However, the Spirit was still the thread holding all of those one-shot characters together, and so he retained the greatest stature, even in stories like THE CURSE, in which the hero barely appears. As discussed in HOSTS, HEAVENLY AND OTHERWISE, the only exception to this centricity formulation appears in certain anthology titles. When a continuing character merely appears as an interlocutor—Jorkens in Arthur C. Clarke’s TALES OF THE WHITE HART, or the many “horror hosts” in comic-book titles—then whatever focal presence inspires the most conviction in each story possesses the greatest stature-vector, though not necessarily the greater charisma-vector.

But, it's occurred to me from time to time, what if the interlocutor telling the stories is also a part of them, as the Spirit always has potential agency in the anthology-stories in his series? 

My conception of "agency" came up at the end of last year, with GOLDEN AGENCY PT. 1, where I defined the term thusly:

..."agency" will be used to describe interordination comparisons, which will be seen to possess both narrative and significant values.

The relevance of such comparison to the current question goes like this: if the Spirit can have dominant agency even in all of his stories, even those where he does next to nothing, then why would the same NOT be true of icons who appear in all the stories within a self-contained anthology?

In the above essay, the reason I split agency into both "narrative" and "significant" values was because it's more than evident that central characters may have no agency at all within the diegesis of their stories, but may have it in an extra-diegetic sense. My example was Willy Loman of Miller's play DEATH OF A SALESMAN, who has no power within his story to change his circumstances, but has agency insofar as his fate manifests the primary concerns of the author's will. Similarly, though the serial character of The Spirit may not have much narrative agency in all of his stories, he has significant agency as the source of the authorial ethos that ties together all the characters in his world.

So, when an interlocutor-like character participates within the diegesis of a story, one must ask if the author's will is most fully expressed in this icon's actions and outcome. 

The 1981 HEAVY METAL presents viewers with a frame-story in which a glowing green sphere, billed in credits as "Loc-Nar," accosts a young girl, whose father he has just killed, and tells her stories about the many ways Loc-Nar has spread, or tried to spread, evil throughout the universe. 

In one of the narrated stories-- which the listening girl views, as if Loc-Nar were a crystal ball-- Loc-Nar has only a minor effect, encouraging a robot to go sex-mad in "So Beautiful, So Dangerous."

In two stories, "B-17" and "Captain Sternn," Loc-Nar wreaks capricious changes on human beings, reviving dead pilots as zombies in "B-17" and mutating a not-quite-innocent individual in "Sternn." 

In the story "Harry Canyon" Loc -Nar, pretending to be a priceless artifact, leads two subordinate characters to their doom. However, the centric character is never even aware of Loc-Nar's power, and fortune so favors him that he makes a pile of money off the weaknesses of those who seek to profit from the artifact.

In the other two stories, "Den" and "Taarna," Loc-Nar's influence takes different shapes. The entity does not directly seek to tempt the heroic Den, but other characters present Den with the possibility of using Loc-Nar to rule his new world, and Den nobly refuses.

 In "Taarna" Loc-Nar seeks to dominate an entire future-world. Some denizens of that world summon the heroine Taarna to oppose Loc-Nar's forces, and after several battles, Taarna makes a direct assault upon Loc-Nar. The entity makes its only direct attempt at temptation, offering Taarna rulership, but the warrior-woman destroys Loc-Nar-- which, through some unfathomable resonance, causes the interlocutor Loc-Nar in the frame-story to perish as well. The movie ends upon a triumphant note, even though of the six stories, Loc-Nar succeeding in promulgating evil in three narratives, but did not wholly succeed in the other three. 

In essence, the same paradigm applies to Loc-Nar that applied to Willy Loman. Loc-Nar has considerable narrative agency, but the point of the author(s) is to show that his agency can be defeated, and so in each story the centric icon is whatever entity the Loc-Nar impinges upon. Therefore he does not have significant agency across all six stories, as the Spirit does in all of his tales.

However, some of the characters appeared in other comics-stories before their adaptation in HEAVY METAL, and of course Loc-Nar, as conceived by the movie's authors, did not appear in the stories of "Den," "Captain Sternn," and "So Beautiful So Dangerous." Therefore, since these are "familiarity icons" being "crossed over" with the "novelty-icon" of Loc-Nar, HEAVY METAL qualifies as a crossover-film.

(Note: the name Loc-Nar comes from one of the "Den" comics-stories but there's no connection between that name and the movie's icon. Additionally, though Wiki says that "Harry Canyon" and "Taarna" are derived from two separate Moebius stories, neither qualifies as an adaptation.)

GOLDEN AGENCY PT. 1

 Let's see if I can get in one last new analytical term before the year ends...

I was musing on the concept of dynamis in the literary sense that Northrop Frye promoted it, or at least as I extrapolated that usage within my own Frye-influenced system. In essays like 2012's STATURE REQUIREMENTS, I focused most on the notion that dynamis, which Frye defined as a "power of action," applied specifically to the differing ways in which characters in different literary mythoi have their power of action determined by their respective mythoi. Here's my breakdown of the mythoi according to the protagonists' power of action:

Adventure-heroes always win, or at least lose so rarely that most audiences take no account of the losses.  Ironic heroes rarely win, and when they do, the victories mean nothing.  Dramatic heroes occasionally win but they go through such pathos-inducing straits that they don't get much of a thrill out of it.  What's left for the comic heroes?

Comic heroes, whether they are as powerful as Ranma Saotome or as bumbling as Johnny Thunder, tend to win out, though they tend to do so less by superlative skill than by dumb luck.  Ranma usually displays superlative fighting-skills, and he does win most of his assorted battles with other comedic kung-fu opponents, but the emphasis is clearly upon finding ways to amuse the audience by undercutting the hero's triumph with silly pratfalls, comic embarrassments and the like.  Thus his stature within his mythos exists to be a vehicle not for thrills but for the jubilative mood of the *incognitio,* the comic incongruity-- which, in Ranma's series, often takes the form of his transforming from a young guy to a big-breasted young girl.

 Anyone who reads that essay now should observe that back then I was floating my first use of the term "stature" to describe how the characters compared with one another. in terms of their mythoi-associations, which I would later bring into line with Ovid's famous formulation in 2018's THE FOUR AGES OF DYNAMIS. But I didn't utilize stature in this sense more than a few more times. In 2019's SUBS AND COES PT. 1, I tipped my hat goodbye to the old usage of that term. Then I began using both "stature" and "charisma" exclusively to describe the forms of authorial will as they manifest in superordinate ("starring") icons and in subordinate ("supporting") icons, and so those terms became completely associated with my concepts of centricity.

At one point, while loosely associating my current concept of "mythos-dynamis" to the concepts of stature and charisma, I made the correlation: "dynamis is agency," though that proved to be something of an oversimplification. "Agency," for one thing, has only one major connotation in contemporary criticism; when a critic uses the term, he or she means that a given fictional icon is empowered in comparison to some less empowered fictional icon. Since this is a determination a critic can only make by comparing icons within one or more narratives, "empowerment-agency" qualifies as what Frye called a **narrative value,** a value that relates only to relationships "from inside" a narrative. In contrast, "mythos-dynamis" was purely a **significant value,** a value perceived by a reader who examines an entire work as a whole in order to discern patterns in the work, which means looking at the work "from outside," as it were.

 I found myself then revising the current concept of agency to serve a wider purpose, to distinguish what separates a superordinate icon possessed of both stature and charisma from a subordinate icon possessed only of charisma. I've been writing about my concept of centricity since the early days of this blog, and though I feel I know it when I see it, it's been hard to describe it except through concrete examples.

Therefore from this post on, "agency" will be used to describe interordination comparisons, which will be seen to possess both narrative and significant values.

In 2018's KNIGHTS OF COMBAT AND CENTRICITY PT. 1, I agreed with Nancy Springer that the central hero of Walter Scott's IVANHOE was not the novel's most "charismatic" character. For Springer, the lack of charisma (in the ordinary sense of the word) was enough reason for her to disallow Ivanhoe as being anything more than a "common thread" who united a bunch of more interesting characters. But I believe Springer was treating her concept of "real heroism" in a **narrative-value** sense. To her, Ivanhoe was not interesting in comparison to other characters, so she did not deem him t he "real hero." I argued that Ivanhoe being the "common thread" was exactly what did make him the main character. This form of agency would be a **significant value,** because the interpreter is looking at the entire design of the work "from outside" in order to decide which icon (or group of icons) gets the most narrative emphasis, regardless as to how interesting the icon may be compared to other characters in the story.

The same principle applies to many modern fictional characters who had far less colorful lives than that of Ivanhoe. Willy Loman of Miller's DEATH OF A SALESMAN has no "agency" in a narrative sense, and in fact he exists to be a failure as a salesman and as a father. But this is still agency with respect to the principle of centricity, because Loman is the focus of the author's will to depict a dire and depressing outcome.

Now, how can agency also be a **narrative value?** I return to the example of Ivanhoe. I've mentioned earlier that Scott's novel is an example of a stature-crossover, in that the centric character, whose base level of stature is boosted thanks to the literary fame of the book, crosses paths with the legendary character of Robin Hood. This is a *narrative value** because Robin Hood's legend is of importance within the story as well as holding significance to the readers of the story. Even though Robin Hood functions as a Sub in comparison to Ivanhoe's Prime, the bandit of Sherwood has a special level of agency because his legend possesses an irreducible (and qualitative) stature. This means that by analyzing the relations of the characters within the narrative, IVANHOE qualifies as what I termed a HIGH STATURE CROSSOVER in this essay. 

A similar analysis of intra-narrative factors may lead the critic to determine how the vectors of agency function in other interordinate relationships, and so other crossovers may be also by low-stature, high-charisma, or low-charisma, as detailed in the essays of the CONVOCATION OF CROSSOVERS essay-series.

More to come in Part 2.

CONCRESCENCE AND THE KINETIC POTENTIALITY PT. 2

In Part 1, I concluded the essay with these words:

In the case of the kinetic phenomenality, the operation of concrescence depends on bringing together disparate elements into what appears a seamless whole, just as it does with respect to symbolic discourses.

In that essay, I viewed the physical dynamicities expressed by two artists-- Jack Kirby and Mike Zeck-- and gave my reasons for viewing a Kirby panel as "good kinetic discourse," while Zeck's panel was"bad kinetic discourse." Nevertheless, in previous essays, I've gone on record as stating that even badly done kinetic discourses may fall within the combative mode. One such essay on that subject was INTENT VS. EXECUTION. In that 2015 essay, I compared two mediocre movies, 1956's WORLD WITHOUT END and 1984's AMAZONS, both of which conclude with less than impressive fight-scenes. Yet, since I rated AMAZONS as combative and WORLD as subcombative, for me this begs a question regarding the function of concrescence in this conceptual model.

Oddly, though INTENT links with an earlier essay that discusses the narrative-significant schism. I didn't bring that concept into play in any direct manner. However, I gave Paul-Michael Glaser's AMAZONS credit for having a combative "intent" that I did not find in Edward Bernds's WORLD:

So, even though both Paul Glaser and Ed Bernds fall short in terms of execution, I give Glaser the nod because his work shows some "intent" to provide a combat that resolved the differences of the opponents, while Bernds seemed unaware that his main hero had to do something at least semi-impressive. 

It belatedly occurs to me that what I called "execution" in the essay parallels with the concept of a work's narrative value with relation to the combative mode: that if the work doesn't display the contending of impressive energies, then it cannot be combative. Yet, though Glaser's film isn't much better in terms of showing those contending energies, it does show "intent," which in my system would line up with a "significant value"-- ergo, the concluding fight is important TO THE READER for such-and-such a reason.

Thus, I find that while the kinetic discourse of both works may be inferior in terms of narrative values-- and thus, not fully concrescent-- AMAZONS is concrescent with regard to the significant values possible for both works, while WORLD is not, and so registers as subcombative.

 

NARRATIVE AND SIGNIFICANT AMPLITUDE PT. 3

In the first two sections of this intermittent essay-series, I argued with myself that the "significant values" of a given work, or set of works, could affect the "narrative values" of the item under discussion.  However, only recently did I consider this effect could be metaphorically illustrated in mathematical terms.

In the original ACTIVE SHARES, PASSIVE SHARES argument, I surveyed the Silver Age Marvel comic-series, of which I said:

I could and did do a statistical survey on another Old West hero: the Rawhide Kid of Marvel Comics, the company descended from the publisher who did "Ringo Kid" in the 1950s. When I counted the number of Rawhide's purely isophenomenal adventures, and compared them with those in which he'd enjoyed encounters with metaphenomenal entities, the latter worked out to about eight percent of the total stories. So, by the "51 percent rule," Rawhide could not belong to "the superhero idiom" any more than could the Ringo Kid.

But this presumes that every metaphenomenal story in the series has exactly the same value as every isophenomenal story; that one story equals a value of "one." Yet in EXCESSIVE COMBINATORY FORCE, I said:

So I have at least made the essential statement that for the combinatory mode as for the dynamicity-mode, "excess of strength is proof of strength," as Nietzsche aptly said.

By this paradigm, a story with metaphenomenal elements is "stronger" than one without them, if only in the degree to which the former type forces the reader to utilize his imagination. Given that strength even in the non-imaginary world carries more value than comparative weakness, then it's arguable that every metaphenomenal RAWHIDE KID story ought to have a value of more than one.

To be sure, I fudged the original percentages by allowing a value of "one" simply to each issue of RAWHIDE KID, even though some of the earlier issues contain more than one story with the starring character. Since I felt that the feature progressed away from multiple stories fairly soon, I decided I didn't want to count out every story, with the result that I regarded the whole run of the KID as comprising 113 "points" (at least two issues featured reprints before the title went all-reprint).  Of those 113, I considered that 15 of the stories had metaphenomenal content, though I'll note here, as I did not in the earlier essay, that only two of them are "marvelous" and all of the others are "uncanny."

Now, whatever calculator gave me eight percent I evidently misused, because when I tried the operation today, it came out as a little over 14 percent. The error makes no difference to the 51 percent rule: eight and fourteen are equally unable to enjoy a "controlling interest."

So, if I posit that each isophenomenal story, because it makes no great appeal to the imagination, is only worth one point, then that gives 98 points for the roughly 98 isophenomenal stories in the Kid's original run.

Now suppose that I say that a marvelous-metaphenomenal story is worth not one, but five points. Only two stories in the run are unquestionably marvelous in nature, the "Red Raven" story and the "Living Totem" tale, so with those added we have 10 points for the stories themselves, 108 points for the grand total.

Then there are thirteen "uncanny" stories, so I'll arbitrarily assign them three points to each of these. So the subtotal of metaphenomenal stories becomes 10 + 39, equaling 49, and the total points overall are 147. Out of 147, 49 is roughly 33 percent. It's still not 51 percent or more, but it begins to look more like the sort of "passive share" I argued about earlier.

Now, I could continue to jigger the ratings of the metaphenomenal stories until they did raise above fifty-one percent, but if I set that standard in stone, then it would be totally arbitrary. By asserting greater values for the metaphenomenal stories in a merely theoretical manner, this adjusted paradigm adequately illustrates the principle of the passive share I sought to explore.

A contrasting example, brought up in NARRATIVE AND SIGNIFICANT AMPLITUDE PT. 2. was that of the 1960s TV serial LOST IN SPACE. I wasn't concerned with sussing out phenomenology here, but the appearance of the combative mode, and as with RAWHIDE I assigned every story (including parts of continued stories) just one point. Eighty-three stories meant eighty-three total points, Nineteen of the episodes were combative, which registers as 23 percent of the whole.

But to be consistent with my assertions in EXCESSIVE COMBINATORY FORCE, the higher dynamicities of a combative work should be valued higher than those that lack this dynamicity. So the total number of points for the subcombative episodes, assigning each one point, is 64.

Since combative dynamicity doesn't make quite the same appeal to the imagination as does metaphenomenality, I'll conservatively assign the value of three to the nineteen episodes. So the subtotal for the combative episodes is 57 and the overall total is 121. The subtotal is about 44 percent of the total, so it too does not meet the 51 percent criteria, though it too is closer to being a "passive share." However, because combative adventure does not seem to have been as important to LOST IN SPACE as metaphenomenal content was to RAWHIDE KID, it's possible that the significant value of the former might have a negativizing effect upon the whole of the teleseries. More on that later, if I get suitably inspired.

NARRATIVE AND SIGNIFICANT AMPLITUDE PT. 2

Though this post continues some of the thoughts from Part 1, I was tempted to title it something like "Narrative and Significant Dominance in the Two Modes." But that would've been more work to type.

The essential theme of AMPLITUDE PART 1 was to re-examine once more the principles by which I established my literary reading of the economic idea of "active and passive shares." However, though that essay was done in October 2018, its general principles were stated in June 2017 in the short essay EXCESSIVE COMBINATORY FORCE:

So I have at least made the essential statement that for the combinatory mode as for the dynamicity-mode, "excess of strength is proof of strength," as Nietzsche aptly said.

Now, in AMPLITUDE I cited two completed serial runs, using the Silver Age RAWHIDE KID as an example of a work with an "active share" with respect to the combinatory mode, and the 1960s LOST IN SPACE as an example of a work with a "passive share" with respect to the dynamicity mode. Generally speaking, I've aligned the two modes in line with the "narrative" and "significant" values outlined by Northrop Frye. The combinatory mode aligns with "significant values," since only the reader, the audience who interprets a work's significance, can suss out the dominant phenomenality of a work or group of works. The dynamicity-mode aligns with "narrative values," since such values are tied in with the internal values of the story, in this case being whether or not the characters do or do not wield exceptional levels of power in order to produce the narrative.

For that reason, I stated that even though only about nine percent of all RAWHIDE KID stories had metaphenomenal elements, the ones that did have such elements assumed a "value of significance" in the series," Conversely, though there were 23 percent of the LOST IN SPACE stories that boasted scenes of combative dynamicity, I argued that these scenes had a nugatory "value of significance" according to the series' tendency to assert a more pervasive "value of significance" that did not support the combative mode.

What it essentially comes down to is: does a particular aspect of storytelling play a vital role in the story, or series of stories, or is it less than vital?

If the role of this aspect has a strong amplitude, either with respect to narrative or significant values, then it is dominant. If the role of this aspect has a weak amplitude, with respect to either value, then it is, to revive an earlier term, "subdominant."

Some examples may be forthcoming in future.

NARRATIVE AND SIGNIFICANT DISCOURSES PT. 2

It may be that my revised versions of overthought and underthought will in future serve me as shortened forms for the respective effects that "the function of thinking" and "the function of intuition" have upon literary narrative.  I concluded in REFLECTIONS IN A MERCURIAL EYE PART 3   that both myth-critics and ideological critics were in a similar unenviable position as far as converting the majority of readers to pursue more abstract readings of texts. Most readers quite logically are concerned with lateral meaning, which takes in both "the function of sensation" and "the function of feeling"-- and in truth, the abstractions of both overthoughts and underthoughts are only possible when constructed on the foundation of concrete experience.-- RETHINKING THE UNDERTHOUGHT, 2015.

In my essay POETRY IN MOTION PART 3 I noted how Frye made a distinction between the narrative and significant values of literary narratives. To boil Frye’s argument down to its essentials, he regarded a given element as having a “narrative value” to the extent that it functioned to play a role in the way the narrative was constructed, while a “significant value” applied to an element which was meant to serve the purpose of a pattern hypothetically extrinsic to the narrative, what is usually called “theme” or “meaning.”-- NARRATIVE AND SIGNIFICANT DISCOURSES, 2017.

Northrop Frye is the direct source of one "word pair" of terms that I've frequently used, that of "the narrative-significant schism," and the indirect source of another pairing: "lateral meaning" and "vertical meaning," with the former encompassing the Jungian functions of sensation and feeling and the latter encompassing the functions of thinking and intuition (which IN TURN beget the narrative's "overthought" and "underthought"). It's sometimes occurred to me that I could simplify things for myself to abandon one set of terms for the other, and that, if I did so, it would be a truly Fryean action, since I don't believe the critic himself made much use of any of these jargonistic terms. He probably refrained from regular use of the terms simply because jargon always needs a lot of explanation to potential newcomers.

But I knew from the first that this literary-theory blog would not be read by many newcomers, and so I've made much heavier use of Frye's jargon than he did. I've found over the years that the terms "narrative and significant" work best for describing just the bare functions of literary dynamics, while the terms "lateral meaning" and "vertical meaning" are efficacious to break down the dynamic of the reader's response to the narrative. Thus, in VERTICAL VIRTUES (2014), I aligned lateral meaning with Aldous Huxley's concept of "horizontal transcendence," and vertical meaning with his concept of "upward and downward transcendence." On occasion I've probably used "lateral meaning" and "vertical meaning" to mean almost the same thing as "narrative" and 'significant," though the first pair were designed to describe the process of readerly transcendence.

MYTHCOMICS: "GIANT KILLER" (SICK #38, 1965)

After re-evaluating Joe Simon's BROTHER POWER issues here, I occasionally contemplated checking out Simon's 1960s magazine SICK. I never read it in The Day, but its first incarnation enjoyed some duration, presumably providing Simon with his daily bread for the decade. I picked up a back issue at random, and found that the issue was modestly entertaining, evincing a darker sense of humor than the MAD of the 1960s.

Humor magazines didn't get a lot of fan-coverage over the years, and similarly, not many online fans have labored to scan issues of old humor mags, and so this essay will be almost image-free, like my analysis of THE MAIDEN AND THE DRAGON. However, "Giant Killer" is only one page, consisting of five panels, so it's not that hard to describe. SICK didn't provide credits in their contents-page, and the signature on the piece is difficult to make out, so based on other info I'm tentatively crediting the work to SICK contributor Arnoldo Franchione. In the unlikely event that someone corrects me, I'll issue a retraction. (Hah.)

PANEL 1: The "Giant Killer" of the title is the Biblical David, seen at the moment of his first heroic act,  at the moment that he slays the hulking warrior Goliath with a stone from his sling. No one else is seen but the two combatants. Goliath looks to be over ten feet tall and is bearded; David is a beardless youth with something of a Dudley Do-Right profile.

PANEL 2: The colossal feet of dead Goliath are seen at right, and out of nowhere a bunch of identical, black-bearded figures appear to acclaim David. Though the context would suggest that they are Israelites, they look like the stereotype of the Arab, since all of them wear the traditional burnoose and thawb (robe) that mark said stereotype. Here's an approximation of the visual stereotype, taken via Google from a news-story on a controversial high school mascot.

PANEL 3: The burnoosed men, all smiling toothy smiles, take David upon their shoulders. He seems genially pleased with their attention.

PANEL 4: The maybe-Jews start walking, carrying David along, as he raises his arms over his head in a "aren't I great" gesture. He doesn't notice that the group is approaching a palm tree.

PANEL 5: At left David is now dead, hanging by the neck from the palm tree, and the maybe-Jews are walking away in triumph.

Now, the obvious "lateral meaning" here could be boiled to, "One day you're a hero, the next you're a blood sacrifice." And if Franohione had chosen to make his ironic point with, say, a historical figure like Julius Caesar, maybe that would be all there would be to it.

But because Franchoine chose to invoke the myth-story of the Israelite king David, this means that this one-page cartoon reaches into a different set of references. In my essay NARRATIVE AND SIGNIFICANT DISCOURSES  I noted how some myth-works may "structure [a] narrative... as a commentary on other narratives"-- the narrative in this case being the grand scheme of patrilineal descent that ties King David to Jesus of Nazareth (however tortuously).

In the Old Testament, of course, David does not get sacrificed. The very popularity he gains from killing Goliath endangers his life, when current monarch Saul tries to eliminate the competition. But David lives to a ripe old age, and his passing has nothing to do with hanging-- though images of hanging play a definite role in the fate of the House of David.

Long after David has become king, one of his sons, Absalom, attempts to stage a coup and become the new ruler. The rebellion fails. Absalom flees, but he's captured and killed after his long hair gets caught in a tree's branches, pulling him from his steed.

Much later, Jesus of Nazareth suffers a death that involves an image of hanging, albeit not by the neck.

Finally, contemporaneous with the death of Jesus, his betrayer Judas-- who is admittedly not tied to the House of David-- chooses to execute himself (at least in one of the Gospels) in the same manner as Franchione's hero.

I don't advance here the view that Franchione was attempting any sort of structured allegory. Nevertheless, I think there is a raw creativity here that goes beyond the simple ironic moral of the one-page narrative. I'm particularly interested in the appearance of David's killers, for they don't share the image of "saintly Israelites" that SICK's readers would have seen in the cinema of the sixties. They look, rather, like "evil Arabs." For the audience of the time, would have been an image that could be seen as guilty of sacrificing a heroic Biblical figure. It would be going too far to implicate Franchione, decades after the fact, for perpetuating a disguised version of the Jewish "blood libel." At the same time, there's something going on in this brief cartoon that goes beyond just a quick ironic joke, in which the triumphant figure of the Biblical David is travestied by subjecting him to an execution not unlike many other sacred sacrificial figures.

NARRATIVE AND SIGNIFICANT AMPLITUDE

Once more I return to the endlessly fascinating subject of the process of domain-transgression, of moving from the domain of the subcombative to the combative, from the isophenomenal to the metaphenomenal, from the functional to the super-functional, and so on. In FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN, BURNING BRIGHT, I used the term "amplitude," or more specifically "peak amplitude," to designate the energy a creator needs to bring to a work to move from one level to another:

Wheelwright is not saying that there is an archetype of "Eagle-ness" that sends its *eidolos* down to the huddled masses that they might worship the Glory of the Eagle. The "characteristic amplitude" is not bestowed upon the "eminent instances" by something outside history, and yet, the eminence of the eagle is not *simply* the humdrum concatenation of all the particular times that various human cultures decided that eagles looked cool, as a materialistic blockhead like Roland Barthes would insist. Wheelwright compares his notion of "archetypal content" and "amplitude" to Goethe's concepts of beauty, though personally I think Kant's concept of the beautiful and the sublime might make a better comparison.

I enlarged upon this idea with respect to functionality in THE AMPLITUDE ATTITUDE PART 3:

"Peak amplitude," then, represents the artist's ability to go beyond the mean values of both modes, and to "storm" into the more rarified domains of the sublime. Of course the artist will always have some need of the mean values, what I've also called "the purely functional." But the term amplitude may serve better to bridge abstract concepts like "functional" and "super-functional," or any other such concepts I continue to explore here.

One "abstract concept" to which I've not yet applied the "amplitude" concept is the knotty problem of assigning serial works to a given domain-- that of the combative mode, or of the metaphenomenal-- when all stories in the series don't share the same characteristics. I first addressed this in 2012's  CHALLENGE OF THE SUPER-IDIOM LIST, putting forth the idea of a "51 percent rule:"

I term my solution to this problem the "51 Per Cent Solution."  In business dealings we're accustomed to hearing that a stockholder with 51% of a company's stocks has the greatest advantage, though not an unqualified dominion.  Thus, if one wished to determine the dominant mythos of the Briefer work, one would count up the total number of stories and determine which mythos-type was statistically dominant.  Only an unqualified 50/50 split between mythoi would make such a determination useless, but the paucity of these exceptions proves the rule: most creators start with a given mythos, make only token shifts to other mythoi, usually proving "loyal" to a particular emotional *dynamis.*

Yet I decided that this was not quite enough. Therefore I articulated the idea of "active shares and passive shares" in an essay of the same name, seeking to explore why it should seem to me that, say, a gunfighter who fought just one metaphenomenal threat was an example of a passive share, while another gunfighter who fought a greater number of metaphenomenal threats-- though not even close to a "51 percent majority"-- comprised an "active share."

Still, even this was an imperfect solution, given that in the real world of high finance, active minority shares are still based on their numerical superiority over passive minority shares. If I were to state that RAWHIDE KID could be metaphenomenal based on 7% of his adventures, then why would I not state that the teleseries LOST IN SPACE was in the combative mode, since 23% of that show's adventures qualified as combative, as I put forth in PASSIVELY AGGRESSIVE:

Since 19 episodes out of the total of 83 were combative, this means that 23% of the show's episodes featured megadynamic forces in contention. In my analysis of Marvel's RAWHIDE KID stories from 1960 to 1973, I found that only about seven percent of that character's stories were metaphenomenal, but I still judged that the *WAY* they were employed gave Rawhide a "minority active interest" in that phenomenality. However, once one is below the 50th percentile, the quantity does not matter with respect to judging either phenomenal or combative elements. I judged that the Rawhide Kid saga showed a repeated intent to associate the hero with metaphenomenal elements, and that these became a vital part of his mythos. John Robinson and the Robot sometimes accomplish superhero-like feats-- Robinson sword-demifighting his way through an army of androids in "Space Destructors," or the Robot defeating a universe-conquering "robotoid" in "The War of the Robots"-- but these seem to be anomalies in the "mythos" of this series.

However, there was a better way to speak of this distinction than the perhaps confusing references to a given serial work's "mythos." Thus I return to the distinction Northrop Frye made in his essay "Archetypes of Literature:"

We may call the rhythm of literature the narrative and the pattern, the simultaneous mental grasp of the verbal structure, the meaning or significance. We hear or listen to a narrative, but when we grasp a writer's total pattern we 'see' what he means.

Since both the original run of THE RAWHIDE KID and the original broadcast of LOST IN SPACE are completed serials, it's possible to look back at them and gain a "mental grasp of the verbal structure, the meaning or significance." Neither serial satisfies the "51 percent rule," which might be best compared to one of Frye's "narrative values." But RAWHIDE KID satisfies the significant value of the metaphenomenal, giving it an "active minority share." By contrast, LOST IN SPACE  does not satisify the significant value of the combative mode, for the reasons stated above, and so it proves a "minority passive share."

This linking of two disparate critical concepts, then, provides a more systematic rationale for the verdict announced at the end of KNIGHTS OF COMBAT AND CENTRICITY PT. 2:

...it's often occurred to me that the Spirit himself might not be a combative hero, were I going purely by the 51 percent rule. Yet over the years I've refined this theory to take in the possibility that a series, such as that of the Spirit, may participate in the combative mode even if the majority of the character's individual adventures are not combat-oriented. In my final post on the LOST IN SPACE series, I mentioned that the series, despite various spectacle-oriented episodes, had a "dominant ethos" that was "directed away from combative resolutions." This is pretty much the same as saying that the dominant "significant value" of a series can overrule any disparate elements in the series. I have not yet applied this principle to stand-alone works like IVANHOE, but I have already implied that the subcombative significant value of TROILUS overrules the effect of any battle-scenes in the play. Thus IVANHOE would seem to be an exception of a combative work that does not have the traditional climactic fight-scene, even though it's still thematically important that the hero be willing to undertake such a conflict. These formulations may also call for a modification of my positions on the narrative-significant schism as it related to the combative mode.

WEAKLINGS WITH WEAPONS PT. 1

In MESSING WITH MISTER INBETWEEN PT 2 I explained my reasons for not deeming Neil Gaiman's NEVERWHERE star Mayhew to be a less than combative protagonist.

Mayhew may kill a monster with a great weapon, but the weapon's just given to him, with no sense of his having mastered it. 

The sense of mastery-- which I also referenced as a form of Nietzschean "self-overcoming" in COMBAT PLAY PT. 4-- can be a factor that plays a vital role in determining whether or not a given character can be seen as possessing at least "exemplary dynamicity." of the type described in DYNAMICITY DUOS PT. 1.

Jack Burton, my earlier example, might be styled a "weakling with a weapon," just as Gaiman's Mayhew character is. Burton's weapon isn't even as special as the one Mayhew inherits-- it's just a common throwing-knife-- but Burton uses a common object in an uncommon way, while Mayhew uses an uncommon object in a common way. The former places a positive light on Burton's self-overcoming, while a negative light is cast upon the short heroic career of Mayhew.

Another example appears in the British SF-film THE TERRORNAUTS, which I reviewed in August 2013. Main character Joe Burke and his tiny coterie of allies are roughly on the same level of "ordinariness" that I find in the Gaiman character. However, for what it's worth, the characters do have to pass some tests before they can get hold of the super-weapons with which they repel a horde of alien invaders.

Suffice to say that the humans pass all the tests, despite getting no help from the comedy-reliefs.  This accomplishment proves that they've capable of rational thought, and they receive presents, such as a ray-gun weapon, as rewards from the automated test-givers.  They soon learn that there had been a living caretaker of the asteroid facility, but he has died, which may explain why they never get a proper briefing on their reason for being here.  Fortunately, they stumble across the answers through various accidents, one of which teleports Sandy to the very planet of which Joe Burke dreamed.  After a violent encounter with some savage natives, the scientists learn that an interstellar space-fleet, which previously caused the destruction of the asteroid's makers (I think), is now headed for Earth.  Burke and his fellows then activate long-dead weapons and manage to blast the interstellar fleet into dust (hence my LAST STARFIGHTER comparison). 

True, the everyman heroes get some help from electronic skull-caps that instruct them on the use of the space-station weapons.

However, they, like the main character of LAST STARFIGHTER, have to figure out how to use the weapons in combat. so that the film slightly anticipates the 1970s vogue for video games like SPACE INVADERS.

I mentioned in my review of TERRORNAUTS that I hadn't re-read the source-novel, Murray Leinster's THE WAILING ASTEROID, at the time that I reviewed the film. However, I eventually did reread the Leinster novel, and found that the film followed the novel fairly closely-- except for the one scene that makes TERRORNAUTS a combative film for me. Leinster's characters pass more or less the same tests and don the skull-caps-- but they don't get to play "first-person shooters" with alien invaders. Instead, the Earth-people simply unleash what might be termed a "Maginot line" of explosive asteroids, and the enemy ships blunder into them.

Leinster's conclusion, though it has the same narrative value in terms of destroying the alien threat, lacks the significant value of combative sublimity, and so his everypeople don't quite ascend to even the "exemplary" level of megadynamicity I observe in the movie's characters.

More on this subject anon.

MESSING WITH MISTER IN-BETWEEN

At the end of KNIGHTS OF COMBAT AND CENTRICITY PT. 2, I said:

Thus IVANHOE would seem to be an exception of a combative work that does not have the traditional climactic fight-scene, even though it's still thematically important that the hero be willing to undertake such a conflict. These formulations may also call for a modification of my positions on the narrative-significant schism as it related to the combative mode.

However, having re-read all of my posts that I tagged with the label "narrative-significant schism," I don't think any major modifications are necessary. Over the years I've tended to favor works to be combative if they satisfied both the narrative and significant values: that is, if they featured a major clash of spectacular forces toward the climax (narrative) which in turn the reader experienced with a sense of sublime satisfaction (significant). But I find that I didn't originally specify that this always had to be the case.

In early 2013 I posed this question at the end of MYTHOS AND MODE:

Whether or not the "narrarive/subjective" schism between meaning within and meaning without can influence the modes of the combative and subcombative will be seen in future installments of MYTHOS AND MODE.

I gave myself this answer in MYTHOS AND MODE 2:

In RISING AND FALLING STARS I established that it was possible for a work to fall into a given mythoi-category (say, “adventure”) even if one of its two major aspects—“plot” or “character” aligned better with another mythos.  This would only be the case when the “adventure-plot” dominated over the “drama-characters,” my chosen example being that of the James Robinson STARMAN. In a similar manner, narrative values can trump significant values in terms of determining whether or not a work is combative.  

So in my earliest meditations on the subject, I said that "narrative values can trump significant values," in contradistinction to the later notion that both had to be satisfied. My example in MYTHOS 2 was Shakespeare's MACBETH, which gives the reader a story which culminates in a battle between opposed figures (narrative value), even though the battle doesn't quite portray what I called "sublime dominance" (significant value) in that the reader/viewer doesn't see that both men are high-dynamicity figures.

That same year, I wrote TWICE THE MIGHT BUT LESS FILLING, and though I stressed examples where one of the two values was not satisfied, my wording doesn't make it inevitable that the failure of one value cancels the influence of the other.

...not every narrative that contains two opposed sources of "might" necessarily evokes the combative mode.  It's for that reason that I've distinguished the presence of both narrative and significant values within the combative mode.  The lack of one value or the other can cancel the narrative's potential for combative sublimity.

"Can"-- but not "will." Further, over the years I've cited a great number of combative works in which a final combat was mitigated by the presence of a hero's ally who actually delivered the killing blow: what I called "the triumph of the supporting ally" in this essay. In such cases, the narrative value is not quite fulfilled, in that the conflict is not directly resolved by the *agon* between protagonist and antagonist. However, there is at least a connection between the protagonist and his ally, and so the ally's actions are subsumed by the dynamicity of the protagonist, as long as said protagonist actually displays his/her own megadynamic power.

In essence, IVANHOE follows this pattern as well. Ivanhoe has the skill and power to thwart Bois-Guilbert, given that he has done so on previous occasions. His climactic victory over the villain is only put into question by wounds he sustained from a tournament-attack by all three of the book's principal evildoers. So the "significant value" is fulfilled, in that everything in the narrative sets up the potential for a clash between "two opposed sources of might." The "narrative value" is circumvented so that Scott can place emphasis on the internal conflict of Bois-Guilbert, who, over one hundred years before 1933's KING KONG, is another "beast" slain by a "beauty," since the knight dies of his "contending passions" rather than from Ivanhoe's weapons. Yet, Scott's novel, even though it critiques some of the problematic areas of medieval martial culture, still devotes so much space to other combative scenes that the reader can obtain the "narrative value" from other parts of the novel. I'd tend to think that this sort of "transitive effect" is only possible when it's been made quite clear that both protagonist and antagonist do possess the power to bring about a major combative clash in the narrative sense, even if that clash is forestalled for some reason. There's also a minor parallel in the 1956 FORBIDDEN PLANET, which I examined here, in that the protagonists, who possess megadynamic power but not as much as their enemy, must resort to strategy rather than force to win the war. In a sense, Walter Scott solves his hero's problem by giving the villain an "Achilles heel" that kills Bois-Guilbert-- though this wound would not have been fatal, if Ivanhoe had not shown up ready to fight.

ADDENDUM: I had intended to work in a reference to the title somewhere, but forgot it. FTR, "Mister In-Between" is just a metaphor for the intermediate state that a work falls into, when it satisfies an expected narrative value but not a similar significant one, and vice versa.

KNIGHTS OF COMBAT AND CENTRICITY PT. 2

Though it's possible that I'll encounter some exceptions, there seems no way to demonstrate the persistence of the narrative combative value [in a given work] unless there is some sort of spectacle-oriented struggle at or very near the climax.-- PASSION FOR THE CLIMAX.

"Centricity" with respect to the Walter Scott novel IVANHOE, was addressed in Part 1, and in this section I'll be addressed the other subject in the post-title: combat-- or, more specifically, the way combat is handled at the climax of IVANHOE.

I wrote PASSION FOR THE CLIMAX in 2013, about a year after I settled on a definition of the combative mode in this essay. For the most part, I've been satisfied with the broad applicability of the statement seen above, but now that I've read Scott's most famous work, I'm glad that I hedged my bets somewhat with the statement about "exceptions." In this case, the exceptions don't "prove the rule," but they do make it necessary to expand the rule somewhat, to account for special cases.

For most of the novel, Scott arranges events that lead the reader to expect a major fight-scene at the novel's climax, between the title character and the principal villain, the Templar Knight Bois-Guilbert. It's established that the two of them previously clashed, with Ivanhoe coming out the victor. Their quarrel is not specified, but given that much of the story concerns the cultural tensions between English Saxons like Ivanhoe, and their Norman, French-speaking overlords, like Bois-Guilbert, it stands to reason that the knights probably quarreled for cultural reasons. Scott knows that by novel's end the truculent Saxons will be relatively placated when the righteous Norman Richard the Lion-Hearted ousts his bad Norman brother John. But even with that foreknowledge, Scott gives the reader every reason to want to see another "bad Norman," Bois-Guilbert, bested in direct combat.

Further, the two men are indirectly romantic rivals. Bois-Guilbert falls in love with the lovely Jewess Rebecca, and after taking her and her father prisoner for purposes of ransom, Bois-Guilbert is even willing to sacrifice his position with the Templars if Rebecca becomes his willing consort. However, Rebecca has conceived a "forbidden love" for Ivanhoe, though he is engaged to another woman, one of Christian upbringing. Ivanhoe's first encounter with Rebecca is marked by attraction on his part as well, but unlike Bois-Guilbert, Ivanhoe represses that attraction, obedient to the cultural laws forbidding intermarriage between Jews and Christians. (This is probably one reason a lot of readers don't like Ivanhoe, for not flouting those laws, though admittedly he's already defied his father earlier, by opposing that noble's intention to make a political marriage for Rowena.)

But later events oblige Ivanhoe to play the knightly rescuer to this "forbidden fruit." A group of Templars, having seen the extent of Bois-Guilbert's affection for the Jewess, accuse Rebecca of literal witchcraft, and plan to execute her. She can save herself only if a champion fights on her behalf, and Bois-Guilbert is assigned to oppose any champion she may summon. At this point Rebecca has once again rejected him, but he's still in love with her, and he tells himself that as long as he doesn't actually have to fight an opponent, her murder will be the fault of the Grand Templar. Then, Ivanhoe appears, and the two square off for a joust. The reader expects that Ivanhoe, even though he's taken wounds in a previous battle, will call upon inner reserves of strength and best his formidable enemy anyway. But that's not how Scott handles things.

The trumpets sounded, and the knights charged each other in full career. The wearied horse of Ivanhoe, and its no less exhausted rider, went down, as all had expected, before the well-aimed lance and vigorous steed of the Templar. This issue of the combat all had foreseen; but although the spear of Ivanhoe did but, in comparison, touch the shield of Bois-Guilbert, that champion, to the astonishment of all who beheld it reeled in his saddle, lost his stirrups, and fell in the lists.

Ivanhoe, extricating himself from his fallen horse, was soon on foot, hastening to mend his fortune with his sword; but his antagonist arose not. Wilfred, placing his foot on his breast, and the sword’s point to his throat, commanded him to yield him, or die on the spot. Bois-Guilbert returned no answer.

“Slay him not, Sir Knight,” cried the Grand Master, “unshriven and unabsolved—kill not body and soul! We allow him vanquished.”

He descended into the lists, and commanded them to unhelm the conquered champion. His eyes were closed—the dark red flush was still on his brow. As they looked on him in astonishment, the eyes opened—but they were fixed and glazed. The flush passed from his brow, and gave way to the pallid hue of death. Unscathed by the lance of his enemy, he had died a victim to the violence of his own contending passions.

“This is indeed the judgment of God,” said the Grand Master, looking upwards—“‘Fiat voluntas tua!’”

Scott does not enlarge upon the "contending passions" that cause Bois-Guilbert to expire without taking any real injury, though the author devotes a great deal of space before the death to showing that the Templar's desire for Rebecca torments him. He has the power to kill Ivanhoe, but if he does so, Rebecca also perishes-- and since he cannot simply surrender to Ivanhoe, his only alternative is apparently to "will himself to death." The mythopoeically inclined reader may choose to view Bois-Guilbert as the "negative image" of Ivanhoe, given that he can act on the desire that Ivanhoe will not countenance.

But what does the Templar's death mean, within the structure of the novel? There's no shortage of fight-scenes throughout the story, for IVANHOE is a novel aimed primarily at male readers. True, there are a number of scenes that take issue with the 13th-century code of honor, not only with respect to the treatment of Jews but also regarding the noblemen's nasty habit of raising money by ransoming people. Rebecca is every bit a spokesperson for the feminine penchant for peace as Ivanhoe and Bois-Guilbert are proponents of the masculine penchant for conflict.

And yet the central appeal of the novel is not really a critique of the knightly codes of honor and combat; it's more of a side-comment. In the past I've shown how certain works proved subcombative precisely because the author led readers to expect a major conflict, and then undermined that expectation. In MYTHOS AND MODE 2 I wrote this of Shakespeare's CORIOLANUS:

Despite the suggestions that [longtime enemies Coriolanus and Aufidius] may finally sort out the question of superiority by play’s end, CORIOLANUS is, unlike MACBETH, not centered around a combat.  Instead, Coriolanus’ arrogance brings about his disaffection from his fellow Romans, leading to a temporary alliance with Aufidius and the Volscians, and finally to an ignomious demise rather than a heroic confrontation.

Shakespeare goes after the "warrior code" in TROILUS AND CRESSISA with even greater vigor, as I suggested in THE TOILS OF TROILUS.

So, in essence, Shakespeare undercuts all the glory and honor associated with the great duel [between Achilles and Hector]-- though, to be sure, Homer seems quite aware of the innate brutality of the war itself-- and makes Achilles into a honorless dog who orders his personal guards, the Myrmidons, to chop down Hector when the latter has partly doffed his armor. 

Clearly, in a narrative sense, Scott undercuts reader-expectations for a rousing final fight-scene in IVANHOE just as Shakespeare does in the cited plays. But-- does Scott do it for the same reasons that Shakespeare does it?

The answer is obviously no. The fact that Ivanhoe, even though he's not yet recovered from his wounds, is willing to risk his life for the gentle Rebecca clearly validates the better values of the knightly code; values which are entirely negative within both CORIOLANUS and TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. So how should my statement from PASSION FOR THE CLIMAX be amended?

Technically, I've already implied a solution in earlier essays. In KNIGHTS PART 1 I made a loose comparison between Scott's Ivanhoe and Will Eisner's Spirit only in terms of the relative simplicity of both starring characters. For the most part, it would be awkward to draw more extended comparisons, particularly because Ivanhoe was intended to be the star of one stand-alone work, while the Spirit was devised as a serial hero, intended to last over the course of potentially endless adventures.

However, it's often occurred to me that the Spirit himself might not be a combative hero, were I going purely by the 51 percent rule. Yet over the years I've refined this theory to take in the possibility that a series, such as that of the Spirit, may participate in the combative mode even if the majority of the character's individual adventures are not combat-oriented. In my final post on the LOST IN SPACE series, I mentioned that the series, despite various spectacle-oriented episodes, had a "dominant ethos" that was "directed away from combative resolutions." This is pretty much the same as saying that the dominant "significant value" of a series can overrule any disparate elements in the series. I have not yet applied this principle to stand-alone works like IVANHOE, but I have already implied that the subcombative significant value of TROILUS overrules the effect of any battle-scenes in the play. Thus IVANHOE would seem to be an exception of a combative work that does not have the traditional climactic fight-scene, even though it's still thematically important that the hero be willing to undertake such a conflict. These formulations may also call for a modification of my positions on the narrative-significant schism as it related to the combative mode.

SIX KEYS TO A LITERARY GENETIC CODE

In essays on the subject of centricity, I've most often used the image of a geometrical circle, which, as I explained here, owes something to statements by literary critic Northrop Frye. Frye chose this metaphor because he imagined a given literary work as having both an inward and outward motion. The former motion determines how the elements within the narrative interact with one another, while the latter determines how the "total vision" of the narrative relates to its readers.

The circle metaphor remains useful, but its invocation of centrifugal and centripetal motion may be a little too rooted in the domain of physics. The making of a work of art involves at least one creator-- let's assume just one, for convenience-- who may be seen as one part God and two parts Frankenstein. His artwork is akin to a living creature, and if it's anything like the ones we know, then the creature's biological nature is determined by its DNA sequences. The standard illustration of the DNA sequences is usually rendered as the familiar double helix. Yet some online sources have chosen to render the genetic code in circular form for purposes of illustration.

The reason for this, I assume, is that for purposes of illustration the circle still offers a strong image as to how the dominant influences on the organism's genetic code-- what I have called "centric will" in my "literary genetics"-- assume the centermost position. Consequently, the recessive influences on the organism's genetic code revolve outward from the center, akin to my "eccentric will."

The creator may use only "intelligent design" to bring forth his work, or he may create it, so to speak, by the seat of his pants. But whether in a given work conscious design plays a larger part than the subconscious variety, or vice versa, the work always evolves its own code, consisting of both the way the narrative elements interact and the way they impact upon readers.

Since this blog began, I've practiced my own study of "literary genetics," even though I only used this label a few times. It's occurred to me that the majority of my ruminations have been devoted to sussing out what elements in any narrative are the most centric, and thus dominate the work's character, and what role, if any, all the "eccentric" elements play. These ruminations have been complicated by the fact that sometimes the patterns assumed by all of these elements relates to the way they work inside the narrative-- what I'll call "intra-diegetical" in this essay-- while others relate to the way the elements work upon their readers, and perhaps even the creator himself, since he is, after all, "the first reader."

After scanning over my blog-entries for some time, I've determined six categories of "artistic alleles" I've been examining, in one form or another, since the blog began in 2007. The six are as follows:


(1) FOUR MYTH-RADICALS-- first addressed in detail in NOTES TOWARD A SUPERHERO IDIOM. I view these plot-and-character radicals underlying four corresponding literary mythoi as "Extra-Diegetical" because over time the literary mythoi have arisen from the four "ritual moods" identified by Theodore Gaster, whose work I last referenced here.

(2) THREE PHENOMENALITIES-- first codified as the AUM theory here, though I soon altered this into the preferred acronym NUM here. I should add that my phenomenology has been guided by Aristotle's original concept of "pity and terror," which with the help of C.S. Lewis I finessed these broad categories into the more precise ones of the sympathetic and affective affects, which in turn reflect the affective potentials of the phenomenalities. All three phenomenalities are created by patterns within narratives, and so are "Intra-Diegetical."

(3) TWO MODES, THE COMBATIVE AND THE SUBCOMBATIVE, first explored in detail in STALKING THE PERFECT TERM: THE COMBATIVE.  The exploration of the differences between combative and subcombative characters led me to distinguish three levels of dynamicity. as explained in MEGA, MESO, MICRO. This category is also "Intra-diegetical" in that it pertains only to how the dynamicity of fictional characters can be sorted out. I've devoted a fair amount of space to the thematic consequences to the work as a whole when it creates opposed characters with combative potential but then chooses not to resolve the conflict in a combative manner, cf. Wells' THE WAR OF THE WORLDS.

(4) FOUR PERSONA-TYPES, which originally started out as two "word-pairs," "hero-villain" and "monster-victim." I soon determined that "victim" was too limiting a term and modified it to "demihero." Persona-types follow patterns that descend, like Gaster's four moods, from ritual and religious sources, not to mention being influenced by my readings of Hobbes and Schopenhauer. Similarly, the deternination as to whether the central persona is *exothelic* or *endothelic* depends on "Extra-Diegetical" considerations.

(5) FOUR INFORMATION-BEARING FUNCTIONS: These functions, last elaborated here, are largely extensions of Joseph Campbell's four functions. Since they deal with information from the real world being translated into fictional terms, these are "Intra-Diegetical."

(6) The most recent-- and probably the last-- of my code-categories is the four potentialities, introduced in FOUR BY FOUR, though I'd been cogitating on the subject for many years previous. Since these all deal with the creative propensities of the authors themselves-- whether favoring Jung's concepts of sensation, intuition, thinking or feeling-- this category is clearly "Extra-Diegetical."

For good measure, I'll toss in that the terms "Intra-Diegetical" and "Extra-Diegetical" line up with Northrop Frye's "narrative values / significant values" distinction. but I chose not to use Frye's terms this time, since they don't adapt well to adjectival form.

I mentioned in CLEANING AROUND THE CENTER that I considered relating these various conceptions of centric and eccentric will to my rules for sussing out centricity, the 51 percent rule and the "active share/passive share" corollary. However, that will have to wait for another essay.

NARRATIVE AND SIGNIFICANT DISCOURSES

In keeping with my observations in DISCOURSES WITH LIVING SYMBOLS, I've advanced the idea that when an author who is in touch with the mythopoeic potentiality-- even if only temporarily-- he displays the greatest ability to generate discourses of symbolic density. These discourses may exist either for the author's own delectation and illumination (Kafka) or, more typically, for the entertainment and/or enlightenment of his audience.

In my essay POETRY IN MOTION PART 3 I noted how Frye made a distinction between the narrative and significant values of literary narratives. To boil Frye’s argument down to its essentials, he regarded a given element as having a “narrative value” to the extent that it functioned to play a role in the way the narrative was constructed, while a “significant value” applied to an element which was meant to serve the purpose of a pattern hypothetically extrinsic to the narrative, what is usually called “theme” or “meaning.”

This week’s “near myth” essay analyzes MAYO CHIKI, a manga derived from a Japanese “light novel” series. My analysis identified a psychological pattern of clansgression, but this pattern was largely extrinsic to the narrative in which the characters are involved. This pattern can only be deduced by looking at Jirou’s psychological quirk-- that of desiring a love-partner who bears some resemblance to his younger sister—as if it were the hidden meaning toward which the story’s events point. This, then, would be dominantly a “significant discourse," since the narrative serves the primary purpose of piecing together the story's events, after the fashion of inductive reasoning, in order to reveal a meaning. 

However, it’s possible for an author to structure his narrative not to reflect a hidden significant value, but more as a commentary on other narratives. This reflects the "top-down" approach of deductive reasoning, and I term this form a “narrative discourse.”

I touched on an example of a “narrative discourse”—albeit without this terminology -- in my essay on “The InjusticeSociety of the World,” Robert Kanigher’s first story for the Justice Society of America series in ALL-STAR COMICS. Kanigher’s tale was not the first time a superhero feature had teamed up a group of villains to oppose a hero, or group of heroes, but it seems to be the first time a comics-writer used this narrative situation to create a Carroll-esque mood of inverted values. This too stands scrutiny as a psychological pattern in my quasi-Campbellian sense. However, the reader can only apprehend the particular qualities of Kanigher's narrative by comparing them to the broad patterns of other, similar narratives.

This distinction came to mind as a result of my mediations on this week's mythcomic, which will be immediately forthcoming.

THE TOILS OF TROILUS

In MYTHOS AND MODE PT. 3, I spoke of three principal ways in which a given work failed to achieve the combative mode despite having some of the requisite elements, and I used one Shakespeare play as an example of each of the three. One way was exemplified by TITUS ANDRONICUS, which had both the necessary narrative and significant elements but simply chose not to resolve the conflict in a combative manner: I might call this the "diffuse type." Another path was exemplified by HAMLET, which had the narrative elements but not the significant ones relating to character-dynamicity, while the last was exemplified by CORIOLANUS, which had the significant elements but not the narrative ones. The third choice is one in which the main character and his enemy possess great dynamicity and seem to be building to a major combative resolution, but chose to frustrate that potential.

I recently reread TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, a play written about three to five years before CORIOLANUS. I remembered nothing about the play from whenever I last read it. Yet I decided, given my earlier statements on Shakespeare's proclivities for fictive violence, that I should re-read it, at least partly because the play's actions takes place during the action of the Trojan War. According to one source, the classic work most associated with that conflict, Homer's ILIAD, had not been fully translated into English when the Bard wrote his play. Thus it's hard to know if he knew more than generalities about parts of Homer's plot-action. Further, neither of the characters in the title-- two young Trojans in love (hmm, that sounds strange)-- appears in Homer. Both were born from medieval accretions to the main tale, accretions continued by authors ranging from Boccaccio to Chaucer, and since the story had proved popular in Shakespeare's time the Bard apparently chose to try his hand at the legend.

(Note: although Cressida does not appear in Homer, she's probably derived from the character Chryses, a prophet's daughter claimed by Agamemnon, leader of the Greek forces battling Troy. When circumstances make it necessary for Agamemnon to return Chryses to her father, he then swipes another "spoils of war" female from his subordinate warrior Achilles, and this leads to Achilles' famous reluctance to continue pressing the fight against the warriors of Troy.)

TROILUS has two plot-threads. One, dealing with the Trojan lovers, demonstrates no more narrative potential for the combative mode than does ROMEO AND JULIET. The other is nothing less than the quintessential combative moment of THE ILIAD: the duel between Achilles and Hector that, in Homer, marks the beginning of the end for Troy.  Toward the end of the play, main character Troilus does take the field and fights a warrior or two,  but he really has nothing to do with Shakespeare's (probable) attempt to one-up Homer by destroying the integrity of the Achilles-Hector battle. Here's a prose translation of the relevant scene from Homer:

Now, the fine bronze armour he stripped from mighty Patroclus when he killed him covered all Hector’s flesh except for one opening at the throat, where the collarbones knit neck and shoulders, and violent death may come most swiftly. There, as Hector charged at him, noble Achilles aimed his ash spear, and drove its heavy bronze blade clean through the tender neck, though without cutting the windpipe or robbing Hector of the power of speech. Hector fell in the dust and Achilles shouted out in triumph: ‘While you were despoiling Patroclus, no doubt, in your folly, you thought yourself quite safe, Hector, and forgot all about me in my absence. Far from him, by the hollow ships, was a mightier man, who should have been his helper but stayed behind, and that was I, who now have brought you low. The dogs and carrion birds will tear apart your flesh, but him the Achaeans will bury.’

And now here's Shakespeare's reworking:

ACT V SCENE VIII	Another part of the plains.
[Enter HECTOR]
HECTOR	Most putrefied core, so fair without,
	Thy goodly armour thus hath cost thy life.
	Now is my day's work done; I'll take good breath:
	Rest, sword; thou hast thy fill of blood and death.
[ Puts off his helmet and hangs his shield behind him ]
[Enter ACHILLES and Myrmidons]
ACHILLES	Look, Hector, how the sun begins to set;	5
	How ugly night comes breathing at his heels:
	Even with the vail and darking of the sun,
	To close the day up, Hector's life is done.
HECTOR	I am unarm'd; forego this vantage, Greek.
ACHILLES	Strike, fellows, strike; this is the man I seek.	10
[HECTOR falls]
	So, Ilion, fall thou next! now, Troy, sink down!
	Here lies thy heart, thy sinews, and thy bone.
	On, Myrmidons, and cry you all amain,
	'Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain.'

So, in essence, Shakespeare undercuts all the glory and honor associated with the great duel-- though, to be sure, Homer seems quite aware of the innate brutality of the war itself-- and makes Achilles into a honorless dog who orders his personal guards, the Myrmidons, to chop down Hector when the latter has partly doffed his armor.

There's a lot of other support for the notion that Shakespeare meant to vilify the very idea of Classical Greece's idea of heroes and their heroic deeds, but I don't mean to explore that here. My main concern is to locate this Shakespeare play within the sphere of the playwright's handling of violent conflicts, and thus I find that TROILUS AND CRESSIDA follows the same pattern as CORIOLANUS, of which I wrote:

CORIOLANUS was my choice for a play that had the potential for the significant combative value, in that its opposed characters Coriolanus and Aufidius were both portrayed as exceptional warriors seen lusting to kill each other at the play's outset.  However, because the play's plot does not end with a combat between these two well-matched characters, CORIOLANUS is not combative in the narrative sense.

I'll forego further comment on the play, except to say that it strikes me as a play in which the writer's desire to satirize something he didn't like-- in this case, the general macho swaggering of the Greeks, and even Troilus's male chauvinism-- but without managing to bring any of his satirical characters to the semblance of life. By comparison, CORIOLANUS is much more successful on a roughly similar theme. The Roman general of the play's title is also something of an egotistical butthead, but he's a much more nuanced character than any of those in TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.