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| The Joker |
Every protagonist needs an antagonist. This is
fundamental to almost every form of literature and most especially the suspense/thriller/mystery
genres. The historical basis for this form extends back to Homer and the
classics. For the protagonist (the hero) to succeed the antagonist (anti-hero)
needs to be vanquished. Good over evil, success over failure, obstacles
overcome. The Bible itself is a series of short stories that advance the good
(as perceived by the authors) over the evil doers of their times. And even if
evil gains a temporary win, it will eventually lose. Literature shows no mercy
to the faux winner.
But who is the enemy? Every age develops both their own
antagonists to be put in the way of the hero and his quest. In certain times
and places it was the Southern plantation owner, the Indian, the evil
landowner, the cattleman, the industrialist, the communist, the capitalist, and
even the society and land itself – all fighting to overwhelm and defeat the
protagonist and hero. There are trends in writing based on the times. The
dynamic cop/detective fighting the mob/politics in the 1920s and 1930s, Captain
America and the evil Axis of Germany and Japan. Hitler and his minions, Tojo,
Mussolini all were grist for writers and Hollywood during the late 1930s and
into World War II itself (The Lord of the
Rings). In the 1950s it was the communists yet Joseph McCarthy as the farcical
enemy of communism became an antagonist himself. We had the fear of the atomic
bomb which spawned mutant ants, grasshoppers, and a thing called the Blob (more
than once). And who can forget The Day
the Earth Stood Still (not the 2008 remake) where then enemy became us not Michael Rennie.
To say that antagonists are fashionable is an
understatement. The selection of the evil doer is as much a finger on the pulse
of society as it is creative fiction. Through the 60s and 70s there were dozens
if not hundreds of books on the Cold War. John le Carre, Ian Fleming, novelists
such as Leon Uris and Herman Wouk wrote in the era of spies and the great fear
of the Soviet Union. The movie, The
Manchurian Candidate, was based on Richard Condon’s 1959 novel where the
great enemy was North Korea and the Soviet Union training captured American
soldiers to become assassins. It was then a time of larger than life enemies
and antagonists. To create a character that can instill honest fear and mortal
danger to not just the hero but to a nation is worthy of our reading.
But trends can get old and even stale. Wars end,
international crises pass, real enemies are defeated, and even the readers
themselves get bored. And if there is one critical aspect to writing is that
you never bore your reader. Even today almost every major thriller writer (Nelson
DeMille, Steven Coonts, Brad Thor, John Clancy, Thomas Harris, Vince Flynn, Daniel
Silva, et al) writes the same book: flawed but invincible hero (rogue American/or
other westerner) confronts the evil Islamic terrorist (even worse than the
governments themselves) and destroys him (unless there is the chance for a
sequel). They are all well-crafted, character driven, and great reads. These
writers and many others of the genre understand their audience: paranoid and
fearful all wanting a savior to smite the enemy and reaffirm the Western future. I know
that is a harsh statement but there is some truth to it. And it was the same
truth in 1939 (pre-WWII), 1948 (Cold War), 1951 (Korea), 1962 (Cuban missile
crisis), 1972 (Watergate), 1973 (Yom Kippur War), 1980s (Afghanistan/Russia),
through to September 11, 2001. Every era creates real enemies and so does every
writer.
More Later . . . . . . . . .
