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[Sep. 27th, 2006|02:05 am] |
This just pounced on me while brushing my teeth and I couldn't stop it. This scene is actually one of the very last scenes. By this point it's only Hermine and one other person left, who is, of course, the first Agent she encountered. Most of it really needs context, but the most I can give is that they both meet at the ruins of a rest stop and talk; he's taken on the guise of James Dean.
Admittedly, a lot of it is what I love to write for long pieces: lots of unnatural, humorous back and forth with revealing passages and not actually discussing an issue. Also, since DOTH is a huge amount of meta on the idea of the hero, what it means, and how one chooses to use it, along with the idea of being trapped in mortal godhood his speech really sums up the final point I want to get across, that every person she meets exists on this plane that is outside the normal experience, and they have to in order to do what they do: ensuring universal peace exists at all costs while acting as the god of their planet along with the Representative.
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A year later, it was hard to find further decay in the ruins to her eye. The same setting, the same relaxed pose against dogged bike. He glanced up as Hermine came in to land, parking next to him. “Shall I end the story?”
“I really don’t know. It’s been long, but good.” She said the statement simply, with a shrug. “I mean, there was sex. Alien sex.”
“Sex does usually assure one that the story will sell, yes. But it takes more. A good main character, some throwback archetypes, a coherent plot, lots of grunting and posing in fights. Explosions, of course. Preferably in space.”
“The last one would be hard to fulfill,” Hermine said.
“True, not every story can be perfect. Have you stepped into your role as hero well?”
“Different people, different stories.” She still bristled at the comparison, but she did not hold a grudge against Leo and his legacy. He was the man your grandfather always admired in those old war stories he regaled you with when you’d rather be doing anything else possible. The hero was admired, idolized, loved by all. But there was the snag: He was, also, always dead by the end. Men like Leo never won the fight because they were too busy trying to be heroes when the world didn’t need heroes or winners. It needed peacekeepers.
“One denies the existence of good and evil, but concepts require words to be realized, words require concepts to give them life. So in speaking we create the duality from which we cannot escape. The hero comes with an adversary, the planet still orbits and creates day, darkens for night. To be right there requires a wrong. It is the universal state of being.
“Yet we live outside this, on our little pantheon, pulling the strings to save intelligent life from its own mind, keeping the balance. Ascendant is the only state we can keep breathing in, and as I’m sure you’ve noticed, there’s a reason Leo has ceased such a function. Anything else just leaves us choking on the dust of the dead,” he rattled the words out rapidly, voice slipping into a slight singsong manner. His face and voice changed abruptly as he finished his speech, relaxing into a satisfied smile. “Welcome to godhood.”
“Painfully honest yet pretentious and wholly unnatural. You’re good.”
He looked away, hand automatically reaching for a cigarette that didn’t exist. “It was a good run all considered, I’d like to think.”
“The star’s light, long since having gone out, fascinates years later on a little far-off planet that will likely never realize its destruction. Dean was a nice touch.”
He acknowledged her praise with a nod. “I do my research.”
The silence passed through them, stilling their minds. She looked off to the side; he turned his eyes to the stars, considering their light. “Even having known it would be you, it still scares me. Toppling Zeus with a feather.”
“Zeus could be quite ticklish, one never knows. I’m not even sure you’re allowed to make allusions to human mythology,” Hermine said, smiling briefly.
“Like I said, I did do my research.” The guise fell away, and having once seemingly held a cigarette, a large six fingered hand now rested on his side.
Same weight, similar texture. The grip was worn differently, to accommodate fingers that did not exist on her hand. The neural structure pulsed a sickly yellow against the deep red background of flesh, flowing in and out of unfamiliar contours, a map of roads never taken.
He was out before the blade landed in her other hand. |
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