"Rethinking Monsters"

I am home this weekend (after last weekend's concert and Ren Fair), and may you all have a very merry No Kings weekend.

Presently re-reading The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Sir Terry Pratchett; after that will, I think, be The Forest Laird by Jack Whyte. I have one more episode of Mr. Robot left, and, uh… this is a bit of a screwy finale? We might talk more when that’s done.

I had originally planned to do a different topic for the Saturday Note, but I switched because I didn’t really like it–or rather, it would involve me being judgy about game mechanics again, which I didn’t think was fair until I got further in this game. Also, Halloween’s coming up, so, uh… monsters?

“Rethinking Monsters”

Not too long ago, Rick Riordan, along with co-author Mark Oshiro, released the newest novel in the Percy Jackson canon, The Court of the Dead, was inspired by a conversation in which Oshiro asked, “What if we rethink monsters?” The book (which I admit I haven’t read) features former monsters, now calling themselves “mythics”, trying to prove that they can reform once they’re no longer under the influence of evil deities. Notably, the Minotaur is attempting to find his way back into polite society.

Now I planned to let this slide, but Halloween is coming up, and I recently read a book about the evolution of Frankenstein’s monster in popular culture, which made this roll back into my head. So let’s talk about this!

I do not mind the notion that monsters can reform, or that monsters don’t have to be monsters. I kind of really like the idea, actually. If we play with the idea that non-human beings like monstrous creatures have rationality and free will, then it follows that not all of them would choose to be evil. In fact, many of them probably wouldn’t. I’m reminded of the inner monologue Sam has in Lord of the Rings (which is given to Faramir in the Extended Editions of the films) wondering if all the men who follow Sauron wouldn’t rather be home with their families, and were coerced or manipulated into fighting for the wrong side. And Tolkien was later uncomfortable with the idea of orcs as being Always Chaotic Evil, so it’s possible that they didn’t have a choice either–contrary to the accusation I see that Tolkien meant for his orcs to be nothing but monsters to mow down.

And this is a really cool idea to play with. Guillermo del Toro has basically made a career out of movies where the “monster” characters are really the most human, and have to bear with the prejudices of society which stigmatizes them for things that aren’t their fault. For his Pinocchio, for instance, the idea that the happy ending is the title character becoming human is ridiculous–the happy ending is Pinocchio (and his family) accepting himself for who he is. He doesn’t need to be human to have a soul.

Which sort of makes him the perfect director to take on Frankenstein. I think it’s probably too simplistic to say the Creature is good and Victor Frankenstein is an evil bastard, but it is not an invalid reading to say that the Creature is much more sympathetic. Victor’s a negligent creator, who keeps refusing responsibility whenever the blame comes up, and turns down any opportunity to peaceably fix his situation. Meanwhile, the Creature doesn’t get a loving upbringing, gets rejected by everyone, even his maker, and doesn’t have much chance to do good because everyone hates him on sight. That doesn’t excuse any of his murders, obviously, but it shows that he was dropped into a game rigged against him to begin with.

Part of the issue with this, though, is from what I can tell, Riordan and Oshiro are also using this as a redemption arc for villainous monsters that have appeared in past books in the canon. Which isn’t the same thing at all. You can tell us all you want that the Minotaur didn’t really mean it when he attacked our hero, he was forced into it, but that doesn’t change that he attacked our hero with deadly force. It also rings a bit hollow that “he was forced into it” when, in his second appearance in the canon, the Minotaur had placed the camp necklaces from demigods on his weapon’s handle–meaning that he’d been collecting trophies from demigods he’d killed.

Reminder: the demigods in question were, at the oldest, teenagers. The Minotaur had trophies from kids he’d killed. That’s a bit of a difficult thing to square away with the notion that “he only did evil because the Big Bad made him do it.”

Of course, redemption is possible. It’s a hard sell to the audience, though, when you’re talking about someone who has harmed our hero and killed a bunch of kids. The authors are acting like questioning the monster’s humanity is the same thing as a redemption arc, and it fundamentally isn’t.

Which is a shame because Percy Jackson and its sequel serieses have a few examples of “monsters” that aren’t evil. There are cyclopses, harpies, giants, and so forth that prove that there is room for non-human beings that don’t follow the expectations we might have for their moral alignment. Picking one who has a lot more murderous baggage, and then saying, “Look! He’s good now! We re-thought about what a monster is!” indicates that they haven’t thought much about it at all, they’ve only shifted the conversation in an awkward direction for no discernible reason.

I love the idea of “rethinking monsters”. I want that, especially with mythology-based stories, in which monsters were often killed by virtue of not being human by morally sketchy heroes. This isn’t that, though.

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