#TheFranchiseAwakens
ADB-151216#62
“These are not the toys you’re looking for” edition
[WARNING: “A Game of Thrones” spoilers ahead]
I’ll never forget a conversation I had with my mom back in high-school—we were discussing the death of main characters in fiction and she said something like, “The author has a responsibility to the audience.”† I thought this was absurd, I mean who was writing the story then? The author should be able to do whatever they feel like.
Are you allowed to write a story where the reader gets heavily invested in the main character only to have that same character die a horrible death with no true resolution? Why not? George R.R. Martin did it! In his unfinished fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire (also the hit HBO show Game of Thrones) GRRM makes it his calling card to kill off the heroes you’ve already invested thousands of pages believing in. My mom does not like this author.
In my first unfinished novel Black Plastic Lightning, the main protagonist is a man attempting to comprehend and re-live his life leading up to his 40th birthday. I started writing this book [over] twenty years ago, and I felt it important that the central character, the birthday boy, die after the first few hundred pages and leave everyone else, especially his estranged daughter, in a state of shock. She discovers he’s been keeping an audio journal and sets out on her own journey of losses and discoveries.
Anywho… my point is really this—whether you are George Martin or George Lucas, you can do whatever the fuck you want with your characters and stories UNTIL YOU SELL THEM FOR MILLIONS (OR BILLIONS) OF DOLLARS TO HBO OR DISNEY. Then you have to shut-up, count your money, and let the fans (carefully vetted by the new masters to make a profit on their investment, of course) run the asylum.
† Now I think Mom meant that the author and readership form a pact that is dangerous to mess with. It almost destroyed Lucas.
I just want to go on record as saying that Star Wars is truly a simple mashup with great collaborators that made it a unique and resonant film that perfectly captured the zeitgeist of the 70s child. I still own those memories and play-experiences regardless of Jar Jar or trade embargoes.
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