HOW WEAK IS TOO WEAK?

Back in 2013's essay TO THE POWER OF XYZ PT. 2, I wrote:

The purpose of extending this concept to types of narrative dynamicity is to account for the way in which many stories find ways for characters of lesser dynamicity-- and thus lesser stature-- to conquer entities with greater dynamicity/stature.  Whenever this formula is employed-- that of *megadynamicty* being overthrown by *mesodynamicity* (as with the film THE DEADLY MANTIS) or by *microdynamicity* (as with MIGHTY MAX), one is generally dealing with a refutation of-- or at least a temporary avoidance of-- the logic of the combative mode, which generally declares that exceptional force can only be overcome by exceptional force, or at least by exemplary force gifted with some measure of strategic ability, as we see at the conclusion of the film BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, cited here.

In the case of fictive situations wherein *megadynamicity* is overthrown by *mesodynamicity,* the exception I've provided is one where mesodynamicity is given a "boost" of some strategic sort, as when Jack Burton, whose personal power in no way equals that of his nemesis Lo Pan, pulls one specific trick out of his bag that defeats the villain.

Over the years I've cited a number of narratives wherein one member of an ensemble group is "lifted up," so to speak, by sheer association with other members who are more powerful. Here too "strategic ability" often ennobles the merely mesodynamic member. Jonny Quest, the ten-year-old boy from the eponymous cartoon, knows a little judo but is more likely to run from villains than fight them, or to strike from hiding to overcome a foe. But if he were the only star of his show, he wouldn't make the cut, any more than another cartoon-boy mentioned above, 1993'S MIGHTY MAX.

In contrast to Max, Jonny is elevated by his constant association with the "heavy lifter" of his ensemble, Race Bannon. In large part this elevation takes place because there is much more of an overt connection between Jonny and Race, in that Race is Jonny's masculine model for behavior, far more than Jonny's actual father, who shows courage in various situations but is far more invested in the life of the intellect than his offspring.

Mighty Max has a "heavy lifter" in his entourage, too: a big Viking with the supposedly humorous name "Norman." But there's no necessary connection between Max and Norman, so that Norman's toughness does not uplift or ennoble Max. Norman's just there to haul Max's ashes out of the fire when needed, and so Norman only rates as an "subordinate" ally, not a "coordinated" co-starring member of an ensemble.

Now, in the case of my most recent film-review, the 1998 QUEST FOR CAMELOT, I find its heroine Kayley to be a difficult nut to crack. In the review I mentioned briefly that despite her desire to be a heroic female knight, she does nearly nothing that smacks of heroic action.

 She does partner up with the character of Garrett, who, as I mention in the review, is a blind man who can fight well a la Marvel's Daredevil. But Kayley only has three scenes in the whole film where she personally fights back against much more powerful enemies:

(1) In the forest, she lassos, and somehow pulls down, a big tree (possibly a dead growth, though the film doesn't explain things very well), so that the tree falls atop her pursuing antagonists and delays them for a time.

(2) In the big climactic scene, when the main villain menaces King Arthur, Kaylie gets atop a roof-beam suspended on a rope, sets the beam free and pilots it so that it clobbers the villain, at least temporarily.

(3) At the very end she and Garrett together manage to fool the villain into striking the magical Stone with Excalibur, so that the sword gets stuck again and the bad guy can't use it any more.

So does she pass the "Jonny Quest test," or not?

My conclusion is that Kayley just barely crosses over into the world of combative heroes, and for the same reason that Jonny Quest does. Garrett is the only one who can really fight, and he's tied to her metaphorically in that (a) Garrett like Kayley nurtured the ambition of becoming a knight, though he obviously trained himself a lot better than she did, and (b) Garrett had a limited contact with Kayley's father, in that during his blindness Kayley's father succored Garrett to some small extent, though apparently not enough to keep Garrett from retreating into hermit-dom.

Another contrast, perhaps more instructive than that of MIGHTY MAX, is 2012's SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN.  This film reworks the venerable fairy tale more skillfully than QUEST FOR CAMELOT reworks Arthurian motifs. However, SNOW WHITE is content to invest all of its combative energies in Eric the Huntsman, while Snow White's role is to reflect the myth of the "innocent maiden:"

Snow White's character has more flexibility.  As noted she incarnates the virtue of "innocence" as against the sordid "experience" of Ravenna, though it might be asserted that only the good luck of the script keeps Snow from undergoing a fate much like Ravenna's.  In contrast to many modern versions of the character, Kristen Stewart's Snow is not innocent in the sense of being vacuous, lacking any energy to fight for her own life.  She's never an exceptional fighter, despite getting tricked out in armor and trying to kill Ravenna at the climax, but she does try. The thing that allows her to triumph over the sorceress is the power of innocence, which the script compares the power of life itself. Only this can defeat the death-force represented by the Queen.  Such "life-force" gives Snow the ability to discourage at least one forest-denizen, a giant troll, from attacking her and her retainer, and this trope might be regarded as a loose rewriting of the Disney Snow White's ability to charm wildlife.  One can't precisely call Snow's "purity" to be a power as such: she never charms hordes of animals like the Snow White-manqué of 2007's ENCHANTED.  The script, though it never directly references specific religious icons or concepts, seems to be invoking something comparable to the Christian rewrites of pagan myths that we moderns know best from Arthurian stories. 

 Kayley may not be a very impressive knight, but at least her ambition to become one informs her dramatic arc, while Snow's dramatic arc is far more focused upon her overthrowing her older competitor as the realm's queen. And of course, there's no necessary connection between Snow and Eric, not even the rather simple one I demonstrated between Kayley and Garrett.

TO THE POWER OF XYZ

In MEGA, MESO, MICRO PT. 2 I said:

I'm currently debating with myself as to whether the "meso, meso, micro" distinction applies across the board to all heroes. It's a possibility that it may that it applies principally to (1) naturalistic heroes like Dirty Harry, (2) uncanny heroes like Zorro and Tarzan, and (3) heroes whose marvelous abilities stem entirely from their weapons, as with (as cited here) Batman.

In other words, it may be impossible or just impractical to speak of such distinctions with regards to characters who possess marvelous intrinsic powers.

Later, I decided in THE MANY FACES OF MIGHT that the two marvelous characters cited-- Dream Girl of the comics-feature LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES and Ben Richards of the teleseries THE IMMORTAL-- qualifies for the "exceptional" level of power, my so-called "x-type," even if they might be on the lower level within that sphere of action.

...I wondered if this "lowest division of the highest level" rationale might also solve the conundrum I proposed at the end of MEGA, MESO, MICRO PT. 2. To what extent, I asked at the end of the essay, should one consider a character like Dream Girl-- whose future-forecasting power is essentially strategic in nature-- to be exceptional? One might say that she, too, belongs on that "lowest division" level.

I still affirm this.  Yet there do exist characters who possess marvelous powers or attributes-- whether "intrinsic" or in some added-on form-- who do not belong in this sphere.  Very recently in SHEEP, SANS ELECTRICITY ,my reading of Philip Dick's DO ANDROIDS OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?, I determined that the book did not belong in the *megadynamic* sphere, because "in Dick's ANDROIDS, the violence is purely in the functional mode, even if the combatants are dueling with laser tubes."  In contrast, when I review the 1982 BLADE RUNNER I don't doubt that I will judge it to be a combative work, wherein such characters as Rick Deckard, Pris and Roy Batty take on the aura of spectacular violence.

But it's not enough to discriminate between functional and spectacular violence alone, since there also exist cases in which some characters have marvelous  attributes yet manage to remain essentially outside the sphere of direct combat.   In this essay I presented the microdynamic cartoon-character
 "Mighty Max," whose only "power" is possessing a cap that transports him to scenes of trouble.  Thereafter for the most part he either eludes the megadynamic villains or tricks them into defeat.

A better known character from DC Comics is "Ambush Bug," who from the first is meant to be more of a pest than a threat.  Ambush Bug's only power is to teleport, which allows him to dodge the assorted frustrated heroes who attempt-- and sometimes succeed-- in reining him in.  In the Bug's own features, his creators move him even further from the realm of spectacular combat-- not because comedy itself cannot be combative in nature, but because AMBUSH BUG seeks to be the opposite type of comedy.  The same is true of Dick's book: the fact that it is not a combative drama does not mean that drama cannot be combative.

And here's a "worthless" character introduced by the creator of such powerhouses as Superman and the Spectre in ADVENTURE COMICS #323 (1964).

With "Double Header" it's logical to assume that Jerry Siegel was having some fun with the
idea that not every super-power would place its possessor in the lofty position of the Legionnaires.  Thanks to a quick netsearch I've learned that some later writer actually brought back Double Header and put him in the Legion of Substitute Heroes, which in my opinion misses the point.  The Substitute Heroes were a lot like Dream Girl in that their powers could have megadynamic effects under the right circumstances, but that those circumstances were rare compared to the regularity with which the more powerful Legionnaires could achieve such effects. Like Dream Girl the Subs depended more on strategy than on sheer power, even as Dream Girl in ADVENTURE COMICS #370, when she and two other female characters use subterfuge to thwart the villain Mordru.

So these four examples of marvelous powers or attributes are, for various reasons, not "x-types." Those like Ambush Bug and Dick's humdrum android-hunter might be deemed "y-types," in the "fair-to-good" range, while Mighty Max and Double Header belong in the "adequate-to-poor" range of the "z-type."

I could just say that all four of them are subcombative, which they are.  But I want to work out another aspect of the types of dynamicity, which will appear in Part 2.

MYTHOS AND MODE PART 3

In MYTHOS AND MODE 2 I said:

In a similar manner, narrative values can trump significant values in terms of determining whether or not a work is “combative” or not.  Based on that assertion, I would say that MACBETH remains a “combative drama” even though it lacks the significant value of sublime dominance between two contending forces.  In contrast, I would not consider CORIOLANUS combative in that I feel the subcombative narrative values predominate.  As I continue to consider other cases I will probably come across examples where the reverse verdict proves true for each example.

I'm revising this nugget of theory to say that the "combative mode" should always denote those works that contain both a narrative combative value and a significant combative value.  This means that MACBETH and possibly one or two other works I previously labeled as "combative" are necessarily subcombative instead.

I recently came to this conclusion as I considered the statement I'd made re: the character of "Doctor Who" in WHAT'S ON FIRST, WHO'S ON SECOND:

...in essence the Doctor... belongs in the adventure-mythos, but only in the subcombative compartment of that mythos.

I realized that the reason I'd made that assignment was precisely because the Doctor's tendency to use "froda" rather than "froda" to triumph over his multifarous enemies. This approach deprives the viewer of beholding "the significant value of sublime dominance between two contending forces."

To be sure, certain Who episodes may contain brief contentions of this sort, as when the Doctor employs a powerful ally like K-9.

But because the narrative is not centered around the battle, such clashes have at best a transitory effect, such as one sees in the sole battle of Coriolanus and Aufidius examined in MYTHOS AND MODE 2, or with the clash of the two werewolves in WEREWOLF OF LONDON.

The same applies to the example of MIGHTY MAX, which I analyzed in terms of its central persona but not in terms of its conflictive mode in this essay.  I remarked that Max sometimes had his ally Norman handle much of the heavy lifting.

 

But Norman is neither a member of a "ensemble" as I define the term, nor a "genie" who becomes the real center of the story because he dependably comes to the hero's aid, a la GIGANTOR.  Thus his exhibition of "might," like that of K-9, are no more central to the narrative than the examples from the Shakespeare play or the Universal werewolf film.

It's possible that I may come across exceptions to this rule as currently stated.  But at present, I will consider that a work should generally be combative only if it combines the narrative and significant values associated with the mode.

PLAYING MERRY HOBBES WITH HEROES AND DEMIHEROES

IIn this essay I commented on my use of the terms "courage" and "endurance" to distinguish the persona-types of "hero" and "demihero:"

I still believe that Reeve's opposed categories of "courage" and "endurance" have strong applicability, though I never meant to imply that these categories summarized all distinctions between hero and demihero.
 

I'm glad I said that, given that the Hobbes comment I recently employed for the posts on goal-affects also seems to have broad applicability to personas.

So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory.
 

These three motives-for-violence-- which I usually summarized as "gain," "safety,"  and "passion" of a specifically thymotic type-- also apply well to the motives of heroes in fictional narratives.  Or at least the second two do; more often than not, the motive of "gain/competition" is the motive assigned to the villain.

Thus, without dismissing the applicability of the "courage/endurance" reading, I'll offer a quick look at my proposed hero/demihero distinctions using "diffidence" (aka "safety") and "glory" (aka "passion").

As an example for a hero who evinces "glory," I'll use an example of one of the most microdynamic heroes known to me.

MIGHTY MAX, a character devised to promote a toy line in a 1993 tv cartoon, was one of the oddest "heroes" I've encountered in terms of his dynamicity. Though this simple Earth-boy was frequently referred to as "the Mighty One," he had no powers whatsoever, except a magical cap that could transport him to other realms.  In the company of a chicken-like entity ("fowl, actually") who supplied information on the threat of the week and a big warrior named Norman who provided the heavy lifting, Max foiled dozens of vile villains over the course of 40 episodes.  He did so largely through neither power nor skill, but just by having the dumb luck to constantly avoid being squashed by werewolves or dragons or whatever.

And yet, weakling though he was, he was still a hero squarely in the genre of adventure, in that the stories were all about his invigorating victories over evil.  He may prove a better example of a microdynamic hero than some of those I've used before, such as Brenda Starr and Doctor Who.

In contrast, there's the character of Mrs. Brisby from Don Bluth's dramatic cartoon THE SECRET OF NIMH.  As I mention in my review of the film, I have not read the juvenile book on which the film is based, so I confine myself to the character as depicted in the Bluth film.  From what I understand, only in the film does this mouse-character demonstrate what might termed "super-powers."

These powers are entirely the gift of a magical talisman, which Mrs. Brisby can summon only because, despite her humble appearance, she possesses the necessary virtue of "courage"--which characterization is ironic to me because I would have assigned her persona the quality of "endurance."  The magic she summons isn't used in any combative scenario, but to solve a non-violent conflict: how to transport her home to a place of safety.  But even if this mousey protagonist had used her power offensively-- as does Doctor Craven, an equally mousey protagonist whom I used as one of my first examples of a "demihero" -- would she have qualified as a hero?

By my current reasoning, no.  Brisby is a good example of "instinctive will" in that although she possesses courage, as the script says, it isn't the sort of courage that distinguishes the "intellectual will"-- a will which I link to the Hobbesian concept of "glory."  Everything Brisby does in the film is motivated by the Hobbesian concept of "diffidence/ safety," which might be characterized as more "reactive" than "proactive."

I've not advanced a "proactive/reactive" dichotomy here in so many words, but it does have applicability to what I wrote here about folklorist Vladimir Propp's opposition of the "seeker" and the "victimized hero."

I would say that the qualities of "glory" and "diffidence" also seem better matches for the characters discussed in that earlier essay, with Johnny Thunder following a pattern of "glory" while Jimmy Olsen follows one of "safety" (which I find that I prefer to "diffidence," as that seems to imply a trait of the character rather than a plot-action).

More explorations of glory and safety will probably follow, though probably not until next year.