1. Legend Haven, the friendliest fiction convention in the galaxy, is happening this weekend, and I will be there!

The con runs from Saturday to Sunday, but all my stuff will be on Sunday, the 19^th.

I will be hosting an open booth, ask-me-anything from 12-3 MST (so, 3-6 EST), followed by a discussion / talk at 3:30 MST on “Payoffs and Ripoffs: What Makes for a Great Climax” where I talk about what happens when the mystery box has to open and the answers have to be given, what makes for a satisfying payoff?

There are going to be quite a few interesting people there and lots of fun fiction, and it’s all online, so definitely check it out. Tickets can be purchased here.

2. First takeaway from yesterday’s post:

The conditions by which the Americans wanted the British to govern were so unworkable that they lasted less than a decade before the Americans themselves were obliged to drop them.

We often forget: the American revolutionaries were not fighting for the Constitutional form of government that’s been in power for most of our post-colonial history. They were fighting for the Articles of Confederation. So, when Loyalists claimed that the kind of government the rebels wanted was completely impractical, they were entirely correct.

To top it off, what did we replace it with? Something overtly similar to the British system. Rev. Jonathan Boucher, a staunch Loyalist, commented on this in his book on the Revolution, making it part of his conciliatory dedication to George Washington. Such are the unpredictable twists of history.

3. Second takeaway:

The only reason America didn’t fall into chaos and bloodshed following the Revolution – as well as one of the only reasons the rebels won the Revolution in the first place – was not because of any democratic or representative process, but the exceptional character of a single man wielding de-facto authority in his own person who was able to stabilize the situation.

On that note, it is ironic that, for all America’s rhetoric about not having a king, one of the chief differences between the American and the British system is that the former has a much stronger executive.

4. The Constitution, it seems to me, essentially aims to make America a non-hereditary Aristocracy, with the bulk of the Federal Authority resting in a long-serving political class of Senators, Judges, and Presidents (originally there were also supposed to be Electors, but those fell into irrelevance pretty quickly with the rise of the Party System). The idea was, as I understand it, that there is a natural aristocracy of men possessing exceptional character and abilities, and that this would be recognized by the people (meaning those men who were themselves key figures in the community), who would vote such men as their rulers (representatives if you like).

The idea has more than a touch of class to it, as well as the advantage of being more flexible and open to expansion than a hereditary aristocracy (good for a country looking to cover a mostly-empty continent). Taken in another way, it also has more than a touch of bitterness and envy to it (“I’m the real aristocrat, not you! True aristocracy is on the inside!”).

The real problem, though, was that while crafting an aristocracy, the Founders retained the language and rhetoric of a democracy (“We the People.” “All men are created equal.” etc.), along with means to alter the Constitution. This ensured that, whatever their intention, the American government would inevitably develop in a more democratic direction over time.

5. One trope I really want to see die is to build up a bad guy to be way beyond the hero’s strength, then bust out some convoluted mystical nonsense to give a win. Energy Bending, Wand Loyalties, Quirk Vestiges, etc. Some of these are better set up and integrated than others, but they always feel unsatisfying to me, as if the writer had backed himself into a corner and needed a way out.

I always prefer it when the hero finds a clever or unexpected way to defeat the bad guy using what might be termed his ‘base power set.’ Nothing new, nothing requiring metaphysical or mystical explanations, just “given these abilities, find a way to overcome this challenge.”

6. The much-lamented The Spectacular Spider-Man was a masterclass in this. It almost never had Spidey simply beating up the bad guys; instead it forced him to figure out clever ways to use his powers to trade on his enemies’s weaknesses. And then find new ways to do so every time they show up. For instance, one fight with Electro had Spidey lure him to a tire yard and goad him into overusing his powers, resulting in the villain being covered in a suit of melted rubber (“Non-conductive you say? Gorgeous!”).

7. As I see it, one reason why the ‘mystic alternative’ has become popular is that, as in the Avatar example, it allows the hero to definitively defeat the bad guy without striking a lethal blow, or at least not directly.

Honestly, the ‘hero who will not kill’ is another trope I kind of want to see less of. It has it’s place (e.g. Superman should not kill save in very exceptional circumstances), and I’ll defend it when done well, but I think it’s more often a sign of moral confusion or uncertainty; that the hero does not feel sufficiently justified in his cause to take that step. And so some compromise is worked out to get around it without letting the bad guy remain a threat. In short, as if it were a means to avoid the natural conclusion of the story arc rather than to achieve it.