Good Examples of Deconstructions

Week’s been slow, but we have a long weekend and I got out of work early on Friday! Hooray! 

Presently reading The Demigod Files, the first book of short stories set in the world of Percy Jackson, and still playing Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. Not thrilled with how much of my time in the game is spent managing my recruits in foreign cities rather than actually playing the game, which is an issue I had the first time I played it, too.

Good Examples of Deconstruction

So it was pointed out to me that last week I talked a lot about Deconstruction, as an idea, and described bad takes on the concept, but no actual good examples. I mess most things up, so that’s not too surprising, but I thought I’d try to list three good examples. As I mentioned in that one, sometimes it works better to have a subplot or character arc work as a deconstruction, rather than a whole story, so you’ll see some of that on this list.

I’m also mostly sticking to stories I like? The entire literary Witcher saga can arguably be a deconstruction of epic fantasy, except, uh… I didn’t like it that much.

CAELAN’S ROMANCE IN SKULDUGGERY PLEASANT

So, several books into Derek Landy’s Skuduggery Pleasant, we’re introduced to the vampire Caelan, a broody sort who befriends the protagonist, and she’s incredibly attracted to despite knowing that it’s a bad idea. As the series goes on, he becomes quite obviously obsessed with her, stalking her, and eventually ignoring her boundaries.

This entire arc is a deconstruction of Twilight, and not a particularly subtle one at that. I mean, arguably, it’s a dissection of vampire romances in general, suggesting that being romantically involved with an undead predator is probably a bad idea. But more generally–when you’re a teenager, dating a very much older guy who stalks you, makes all your friends uncomfortable, and starts gleefully admitting the limits you put for him? Yeah! That’s pretty messed up! Stay the fudge away from that guy!

And of course, the relationship ends how Twilight’s absolutely should have: with the vampire in question getting killed hard. 

[I think Caelan comes back for some reason in the follow-up series, but I haven’t read it and don’t really intend to.]

MIRACLE ON 34th STREET

Hey! Mall Santas are fun, right? You can’t imagine the issue being a problem, right? Well, okay, but what if Santa’s real, and he gets a job as a mall Santa?

[I thought about including the scene from Hogfather where Death poses as the Hogfather in a department store, but then I realized that sequence was probably doing a shout-out to the movie, so. Here we are.]

As far as deconstructions go, this one’s pretty tame. It doesn’t lead to violence, or even really cynicism, though it does ask a question that I don’t think many people like to think about–is the modern world really able to handle the concept of Santa Claus? Not as a happy advertising figure, but as an actual guy who genuinely wants us to be generous to each other and doesn’t care about material concerns? It’s a secular take on a common religious question, I suppose, and the original movie ends on a happy note.

But it’s still kind of there, a level of cynicism, because many of the powerful people who back Kris Kringle aren’t doing so because they actually believe he’s Santa Claus, they’re doing it because they know their reputations will be damaged if they publicly disavow him. Which is pretty cynical for a movie with such a feel-good reputation!

FAIRY TALES IN WITCHES ABROAD 

Alright, Terry Pratchett does a lot of deconstruction, but the one that really stuck out to me was Witches Abroad, which has a heavy dose of fairy tale tropes in it. There’s a villain who thinks life should be like a fairy tale, and she goes out of her way to enforce those tropes on the people around her.

Which obviously isn’t very realistic! Even in a world full of magic like the Discworld, people are complicated! Well, mostly. In any case, you can’t expect people to conform to stories (or animals for that matter!), and if you view yourself as living in a story, you’re going to be a massive raging dick to the people around you! In this case, it’s because an evil witch is so detached from reality that she doesn’t even understand that she’s hurting a lot of good people–after all, she’s delivering happy endings!

She just doesn’t think about what the people stuck in this fairy tale she’s built are like, and whether or not they want this life she’s made for them. Living in a world where enchantments are passed out like candy, people conform to stereotypes, and you marry someone chosen by destiny–is that not a nightmare??

[It’s also kind of interesting because there’s a bunch of Discworld stories that run on the idea that the characters know how stories work, and use that to their advantage. And some of that is here, but for the most part Granny Weatherwax doesn’t care about any of that. What she cares about is doing the right thing, because someone has to.]

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