Villains Plan

What would the world look like if it was remade how the library saw fit? Probably fucked up. We tend to have issues with plans if we think too far ahead.

     A lot of stories are like that. The hero's journey is based on the fact that the hero is wrong about the way their life works out. They want something, like to get away from the humble dirt farm they grew up on, all the while the audience sees that they just need companionship and purpose. Stop trying to kill the Empire and hug your friends, Luke Skywalker.

     The tragic version of this comes out in movies like The Northman. Based on the story of Amleth that was the basis of Shakespeare's Hamlet, it's about a kid who has his dad killed and vows revenge. Where Hamlet's revenge comes in a slow poison death for all involved, the Northman ends with a naked volcano sword fight after a period of violent magic sword hackery. The journey of both heroes is the same, however, to learn that revenge is much more petty than tearing down the whole system. Sad to say that as a part of the system of betrayals and violence, the hero of those stories must also be torn down. The tortured hero cannot live in a utopia.

     Villains plan. By their nature, they create chaos by any means to get what they want. The majority of stories start with some evil nerd trying to get money or an evil stepmom trying to get the house cleaned. Then some hapless cop or poor dirty girl have to get involved, spending half the time reacting while the villain tears shit up until they gain the skills, equipment, and friends to start kicking ass. Or some random prince rolls in with a fancy shoe and kicks stepmom to the curb.

     What can we learn from all this? How can the library plan without becoming the villain? How can we react with any surety of the future? How can we learn from the stories we tell ourselves, we humans, that compassion and empathy give way to rich lives without sounding like assholes?

     Fuck, got lost in another rabbit hole.

     Come down to the library for story time this week. We're talking American Hippo by Sarah Gailey and how the world can be different sometimes based on how you look at it. Alternate histories abound in the forever fields of the human mind. 

Coincidence in the Mandalorian

I opened a beer, filled my vape tube, and started the Mandalorian.

     First season was fun. A finding your legs type of affair where the characters were being felt out. Mando strolling in cock first, shoulders back, shooting people the way the Force intended. Every once in a while, like his shoulders, there was a slump. Never for long, though. Rally cry and pew pew and Mando and Baby Yoda riding into the sunset.

     The first episode of the second season brought a giant dragon and some hell with it. Krayt Dragons ain't nothing to fuck with. Still, you could say the whole thing was justified. Mando came to town looking for other Mandalorians and left with some Fett armor. Felt good, a return most welcome. Except this time I did not seem so worried about Baby Yoda.

     If that is his or her real name.

     Maybe it is fatigue? That cute little face is still adorable. I want them to succeed. Yet I find myself more often than not with the second and third episodes saying, "Did nobody teach BY anything in the first fifty years?" Simple stuff like "don't put that in your mouth." I'll get to that.

     We start the second episode with Mando and BY roaring across the desert. On a steel horse they ride, wanted dead or alive. Some guys with a rope decide "dead." Shit's trashed as they closeline our heroes. Then our heroes kill them. I began thinking, telling my notebook, "what?" I mean, of course they are being chased. Look at that cute bastard. But how did those guys know Mando was riding that way? It's a big goddamn desert yet there's only one rock formation in or out on Tatooine? 

     Maybe they didn't know shit about BY and were just raiders. Sure, but I feel like they went right for him. In the end, like all of us, the last man standing bites off more jetpack than he can chew and is launched skyward. His fall mirrors the fall of man as a superior opponent looks at a child and shrugs.

     Moving on! Back to camp where Mando gets transport for a frog lady and her delicious eggs. I mean, they do look like that jar at the end of the bar filled with pickled eggs that nobody but the guy with one arm touches, but Baby Yoda is into it. And, to say again, who taught this kid to eat everything. Even if his first few dozen years were as a larva or whatever, goddamn somebody slap that kid's hand. I thought he learned his lesson, but then came the spider eggs.

     The standoff and flight against the X-wings brought a smile. When everything looks okay, then those wings open up, that's just simple storytelling. They could have said "Hey, we just wanna talk about some crazy shit you did that we might let you go for," but cops gonna be cops.

     Now I'm gonna dump on the frog lady. Who on an ice planet trapped underground wanders off to maybe find a hot spring? And who does not look around before getting bare ass and dumping their babies in the pool. If my mom did that, I would be dead and deserved it. Not to mention all the kids getting eaten by that adorable big eared green trash compactor.

     Spider fight and cavalry save the day for some reason. Come'on. Ice Spiders? Somebody played a lot of Skyrim on their refrigerator while writing the script. Effective, but expected. And those X-wings just found them on that whole goddamn planet? I drop my glasses in my studio apartment and it takes ten minutes before I can see again.

    Coincidence makes kings in the Mandalorian. The old golden rule is "coincidence can get characters into trouble, but they have to get themselves out." Having space rangers show up to blast your troubles away feels wrong in retrospect.

    Hobbling out into space, we get to some actual others of our dude's kind! And it is Motherfucking Starbuck! Gotta say, when they took off their helmets and called him a cultist, I dug it. Nobody writes stories where our "outsider badass" might actually be a brainwashed sycophant (outside of most movies sanctioned by the US military). Texting with a friend, she said, "so Mando's a Jehovah's Witness?" I just hope he gets to celebrate his birthday up in the stars. 

     And then we have another "help us or we won't help you" plot, which seems to be the series main bag. I'm for it. Our guy is always on the ropes with his little puppet of hunger and gets to display how awesome he can be almost constantly. We do get another "Mando's fucked without coincidence" on the pirate ship, but I will trade that for the hallway scene where he's getting battered then blows shit up.

     Wrapping up, we carreen ever closer to this being a sequel to Star Wars: Clone Wars and Rebels. "Go find Ahsoka Tano," Starbuck said. And so we go, knowing full well that by the end of this season Starbuck holding the DarkSaber will make many nerds piddle on the carpet. 

    I never completed either of those series. At some point, Star Wars became "not for me." I was always into the sword fights and the World War II imagery, but the drama often falls flat. Politics in the real world holds way more sway over my mood than made up in-fighting. I like Mandalorian because of the simple "guy and a kid against the world" story. Grand schemes are not at play, global fuckery is not an issue, and just getting to tomorrow feels like enough.

    Hell, that might be my new catchphrase.

Because WTF Luke Skywalker (spoilers for Last Jedi)

Carl took the stack of books from the lady and waited for her to hand him her library card. The lady was bent over, talking softly to something below Carl's reach. Carl waited.

    "Can you fucking believe that shit?" Pam said, coming through the door from the circulation workroom behind the desk.

    "What shit?" Carl said.

    The woman shot up with her eyes wide. "Excuse me," she said high and loud.

    "Excuse me, too. Fucking Luke Skywalker was gonna kill somebody for maybe being evil? The same Luke that got over his daddy issues and turned Vader to the light? That ain't the fucking Luke I remember," Pam said.

    The woman said, "Young lady, you can't talk that way in front of Lucy."

    Pam's face blanched and she leaned over the desk. She said, "Oh goodness, I'm so sorry little- what the fuck?"

    The patron said, "I'm going to report you."

    Carl said, "What's wrong?"

    Pam leaned back and pointed to the door. "Get that fucking alligator out of here."

    "I need the name of your supervisor," the woman said.

    "I'ma get my gun and shoot that thing," Pam said and went back through the door.

    The woman left the building, half dragging her pet alligator out the door, her stack of books on the circulation desk in front of a downtrodden Carl.

    "I don't even like Star Wars," Carl said.