Wednesday, June 5, 2013
What happen's when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?
So I finally got into this blasted thing. It took damn near forever to remember my password from 3 years ago but here I am. I have many projects on the horizon. One script which will hopefully be our break out film and two novels that I teter back and forth between. One about a mech war in the future and the other about a transitioning sociopath who befriends a psychopath, or somewhat befriends a psychopath, as much as one can befriend a psychopath.
Today however without citing any dialogue like previous posts, I would like to discuss the emergence of the nemesis. Nemesis's are not a new development. In the past many have attempted this idea but only recently within the last decade or so do I feel like they have gotten it correct. First I noticed it with "The Dark Knight". What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. I believe the answer to be chaos happens. These two forces are written and executed to show the hero character's unwavering moral code tested by an equally unwavering amoral code. I found this theme prevailent in Star Trek's Into Darkness. It is shown in the trailer so I wouldn't give away any spoilers. Captain Kirk is talking to his enemy who is in a cell and the enemy states he is better and the Captain replies with "better at what" and the enemy says "everything". The nemesis is displayed also in this motivation to out do the protagongist. So that the hero is on a mission to do right and good and the enemy produces situations that make this hero not question the proper response but question the proper priorty of multi-responses that said situation demands.
The last place I found this nemesis theme was on the television show "Elementary" which inspired this article to be written and possibly discussed. If you intend to watch the series, stop reading now, spoilers will commence. I felt that this nemesis plot line was the most interesting because it pitted two geniuses against each other within the constraints of a romantic relationship. Sherlock is pitted against his Arch nemesis Moriarty. I don't recall which episode Moriarty is introduced but he is introduced as the culprit who killed Sherlock's girlfriend. This chain of events is what led to Sherlock over dosing on heroine to start the series off. His vengence becomes an unstoppable force. He later learns that moliarty faked her death just to further torture him. This torture is then appexed by the reveal that Moliarty is his girlfriend/ex-girlfriend. They in essence began this nemesis duel from their battle of wits which in turn made them fall in love with each other.
In my opinion this is a brilliant style of writing. In story telling today the old methods of pitting a protagonist against an antagonist is played out. A reader or watcher can easily figure out the motives and next moves of these characters. But in the scenarios I outlined above it is much harder for the viewer to connect with motivation of the antogonist. It seems like there can be no resolve which I find very attractive. It has made some of the best shocking scenarios that I could not have seen coming.
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