I thought that it might be fun to write something about the goals and themes I am trying to explore with each story I create. After all, the main purpose of this site right now is to groom my material in preparation for being published somewhere. It should help those who decide to offer me feedback to know what my intentions were.
About purity: One of my favorite sci fi films is Alien. I love the ideas in that film. There is a great scene in the latter half of Alien in which the android Ash, having just been uncovered as a traitor, explains why he desired to protect the creature. He says “I admire its purity” and goes on to describe a remorseless animal that kills without the taint of conscience.
I feel that moment is a reference to a kind of biblical struggle between two visions of humanity. One is a Garden of Eden style innocence, a humanity untroubled by guilt, self awareness, or connection to other human beings. It is a perfect and idealized place, where no action has consequence because Adam is incapable of perceiving consequence.
When man was expelled from the garden, it was because his mind and thoughts were now laden with awareness. Ash is disgusted by this idea. He longs for the days of purity when man could act in accordance to his will alone. Garret Moore, like Ash, also longs for perfection. He is disgusted and repelled by flawed humanity. When he sees a chance ‘cleanse’ the world, even at the expense of its survival, he takes it.
Of course I disagree with Garret. Humanity’s beauty is its flaws, not their absence. Any effort to create absolute good must necessarily create absolute evil. That dichotomy leads to perfect joy, but also to perfect suffering and misery. Even worse, such a vision is a dream and a lie, and better left behind so that one can deal in reality, not appearances.
About Penn State: I was conceiving of this idea while the terrible tragedy at PSU unfolded. As a graduate of that wonderful school, it was hard to know how to deal with what I was learning at first. Knightslayer became a way to sort through my feelings.
Misty Vale is described as an idyllic place, and in my mind I envisioned elements of Happy Valley as I wrote. Just like Happy Valley, Misty Vale must suffer a monster. And just like Happy Valley, the monster was protected to preserve an illusion of innocence. I am not trying to cast specific blame on anyone, as none of us know the full details of what transpired, but it seems pretty clear that malice was given haven to maintain an idea of beauty. Of course this only makes things worse, as the buried problem merely festered and grew into something that drenched the world of Happy Valley in its own kind of sorrow and ice.
The trouble with sex: This was the most difficult thing to write. Not because I’m skittish about sex (my friends know this about me), but because I wanted to draw a balance between Garret’s raw lust for Caelynn and his desperate attempts to veil those desires. Since the story is told entirely from his point of view, I tried to construct a kind of Freudian landscape (notice the shape of the hills and location of certain waterfalls) as well as kind of linguistic struggle in the way he describes events and places. He is obsessed with the very thing he hates. I find this to usually be true in my observations of cruel people. One part of him wants nothing so much than to simply take Caelynn (against her will if need be, since he has no respect for her anyway) while the other part wrestles to contain and conform those longings. He hides behind stories and beliefs, rather than simply acknowledging and addressing what is true. His blindness is deliberate, a structured pattern of designing elaborate falsehoods all in an effort to suppress sexual hunger.
In the end lust wins out, of course. As soon as he sees a path for personal absolution, he takes it. His explanation as to why he gets to ‘possess’ Caelynn is supposed to be flimsy, a kind of self imposed reward for doing what he sees as a good deed (the preservation of the dragon). He rationalizes his humanness at the end, excusing himself from being beholden to it as others are, because he did the thing that no one else had the wisdom or courage to do.
The next project: I’m in the early stages of formulating my next tale. It was inspired by a conversation with a friend of mine (Phil). It is tentatively called “Recalculating” and should be much more light hearted than Knightslayer. It will also be shorter. I look forward to your feedback and hope these insights help.
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