DOMINANT PRIMES AND SUBS

In the CONVOCATION OF CROSSOVERS series I set down four configurations with respect to stature and charisma that could applied to individual crossover narratives. However, I made frequent references to judging stature and charisma with respect to the cumulative histories of a given icon, particularly in Part 3, where I dealt in part with how stature accrues in "rotating team" serial features. Now, to better distinguish between these individual and cumulative assessments, I've extrapolated four complementary configurations designed to be applied only to cumulative assessments.

Given that one cited example of a problematic stature-character was Batman's foe The Joker, I decided to use that character and one from Part 1, Fu Manchu, as exemplars of the four configurations.

FU MANCHU was, from his first conception, a STATURE DOMINANT PRIME. The prose book series from author Sax Rohmer may have been told from the perspectives of the devil-doctor's enemies, but even when the Chinese mastermind was offstage, he was always the star of the story. Most though not all adaptations of the character to film or television followed the same pattern.

Yet one of Fu's most enduring incarnations in pop culture was in the Marvel comic book MASTER OF KUNG FU, which starred the villain's heroic son Shang-Chi. I stipulated that though Fu became a subordinate icon in this series, such was the degree of his stature that it was not diminished by his becoming a Sub. Thus within the sphere of that series, as well as a handful of other Marvel Comics appearances, Fu Manchu was a STATURE DOMINANT SUB.

The Joker evolved in a roughly opposite manner. He swiftly became the most-often used villain in Batman's rogues' gallery, but in all of these multifarious appearances, he remained a CHARISMA DOMINANT SUB.

I confess I'm not conversant with many of the Bat-books from the 21st century on, so I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there have been assorted Joker-focused narratives over the years. But I'm acquainted only with the nine-issue JOKER comic series of the 1970s, which did little to counter the Clown Prince's Sub reputation. In those issues, Joker would be a CHARISMA DOMINANT PRIME. I might even extend the logic of this proposition to the 2019 JOKER movie, except that it's arguable that the script suggests the possibility that Arthur Fleck may not be the canonical clown who becomes the bane of Gotham City and the Wayne Who Will Be Bats.

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.