Monday, December 23, 2013

Not An Oxymoron - Part Three

This post, in conjunction with Not An Oxymoron - Part One and Not An Oxymoron - Part Two, hopefully performs three functions:
  1. Establish a counter-intuitive principal by which I judge good fantasy: realism.
  2. Offer a tangential review of the finest young adult fantasy novel ever written - The Hobbit. As this book is so well known and has been comprehensively dissected, it would be both presumptuous and unproductive for me to grind out a straightforward review. These three posts perhaps touch upon uncommon reasons that every person who purports to love fantasy must read The Hobbit.
  3. Catharsis. The Hobbit movie drives me insane, and I want my blood pressure to be lower.
We left off with our writers, almost scene by scene, deciding that Tolkien's carefully crafted tale lacked pizzaz. Our fourth example may not rival the physics-defying CGI nonsense of the third, but it best illustrates both the tone-deafness of our remedial writing trio (Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson), and their almost sacrilegious disregard for the work of a far better storyteller.

The greatness of Bilbo as a hero - a strange appellation for him - lies in non-martial things. This is not only a function of his ridiculously small and weak stature, it is the heart of the story's interest. This is an important point. A fantasy writer is deprived of the "truth is stranger than fiction" grounding of harrowing factual stories of survival. For example, the movies 127 Hours and Zero Dark Thirty lose much of their punch as works of complete fiction. This is certainly obvious, but what is less obvious is that the storyteller that "makes it all up" has a much more difficult task to create and sustain believable tension and concern for fictional characters. Every reader will perpetually be suspicious of the Deus Ex Machina always at the fingertips of their author.

So, Tolkien, like every fantasy author, creates that tension by having the weakest in the story paradoxically prove to be the strongest...employing wits, cunning, guile and courage. Don't dismiss this point. Tolkien could've had Gandalf find an ancient spell, stroll into the Lonely Mountain, petrify Smaug, and end the story. The book would have been lost to obscurity, and the few readers would have laughed at the inept storytelling.

He also could have had an eagle carry the one ring that ruled them all in Lord of the Rings right to Mount Doom and drop it into the fire. All four books could have been neatly condensed into a ten page pamphlet, and we could have returned to watching Duck Dynasty.
The magic of these books is in the weakness of the main heroes. And their weakness is established against a backdrop of realism, the kind of hard knocks endemic to all real worlds.
You undoubtedly do not need this lesson, but I wish Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson would have been forced to listen to my lectures before attempting The Hobbit, because they obviously fail to understand these basic fantasy storytelling principles.

I expect their screenplay discussion unfolded as follows:

   "What's the next chapter, Philippa?"
   "Out Of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire."
   "Just as a starter, summarize the chapter for me."
   "The title," said Phillipa, "refers to the party escaping the goblins in the tunnels of the Misty Mountains only to find themselves trapped later that evening in a more hopeless situation."
   Fran added, "The scene would look like this -- they flee out into the sunlight and wolves pursue the party, sort of like hunting dogs. The wolves catch the party and tree them. Then the goblins arrive."
   "You mean orcs."
   "No, the goblins from the Misty Mountains. Where they caused the death of the Great Goblin. That's what they're running from."
   "But I want the blue orc in this scene."
   "That doesn't fit."
   "No one knows the difference between an orc and a goblin. So, the wolves do what?"
   "Tree the party."
   "Tree them?"
   "Chase them up big-time trees, which will be set on fire once the goblins catch up. Then they are saved by the Eagles."
   "So the party just runs away, stupidly climbs trees, and get saved by someone else? Way too wimpy. What's Bilbo do?"
   "He almost gets eaten because he runs the slowest and can't climb trees," said Fran.
   "Look, ladies, Bilbo is the hero. We're not establishing a hero if all he has going for him in the closing dramatic scene of the first movie is that he survives. Have him kill a wolf or an orc. Something heroic."
   "But, he's only about three feet high and weighs less than your grandson. Could your grandson kill a wolf?"
   "Who cares? He's got all kinds of sword skills, right?"
   "Uh, I think he lived his whole life without so much as picking up a sword."
   "Enough already. The wolves chase the party to the trees, but let's have the party kick some ass. Have Bilbo take out a monster orc. Then, our party being rescued by a bunch of birds as the climax to our story won't seem stupid. Make sure when they get rescued by the birds that Bilbo hangs by a thread or something, almost dies four or five times. Gotta make it dramatic!"

This scene where Bilbo slays an monstrous orc does more violence to character development in this story than any other writing faux pax I have documented.

(Click Picture for Movie Link) Bilbo, the size of your first graders, knocks down, jumps on and kills an orc larger and probably stronger than Schwarzenegger in his prime. LOL. Right before slicing up a wolf and parrying multiple orcs. BLOL.

Now all the drama in Mirkwood loses the wow factor; a fearsome orc-slaying, wolf-destroying hobbit should be able to handle a few small spiders, yes?
Realism -- the frantic dash of a desperate, frightened and unseasoned group from a horde of savage nocturnal creatures -- gave way to absurdity: a character as large and strong as a first grader with no martial background slaying a creature four times his size and perhaps ten times his strength...before turning away a wolf the size of a bear with his savagery.
In closing this three-part series, I am sure you now feel that I am insane. Who in the name of all that is holy frets about such things? Truly, I don't. I am presenting a principle here - great fantasy is intricately realistic - and having both a little fun and a little therapy at the same time.

Oh, joy...I hear a new Hobbit movie is in theaters.

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