But the problem I'm facing at the moment...what are the
makings of a bad boy? He's more than the corrupter of innocents. More than a
devil may care attitude about most things. I'm pondering this and I'm really,
really drawing a blank, because what makes a bad boy is sort of indefinable. I
know one when I see I one. Spike and Damon are the first that come to mind.
Aiden from Jewels of the Sun, but he's a reformed bad boy. Both my Sebastian
and Lord of Scoundrels Sebastian. Michael from Burn Notice. OMGSOPRETTY Nate
from White Collar.(Let us pause for a Matt Bomer moment...Ok.)
Maybe the answer lies in looking at the good guy. When I think of the
quintessential good guy the first image that pops into my head is a buff,
blonde hair, blue eyed guy who helps the little old lady across the street
before he tears the villain a new butt hole. At the core, the good guy does the
right thing, no matter what is thrown at
them, because it's the right thing to do. They get interesting when they visit
the dark side, but in the end they will do the right thing. You can depend on
that.
From the beginning they just have good guy DNA. There is never a question that they'll do the
right thing, the good thing. They will lay everything they are and have upon
the altar of martyrdom. These are the Superman's, Spiderman's, Angel's, Luke's
from A Little Ray of Sunshine by Lani Diane Rich, Nathan Ford's from Leverage
(until he embraced his dark side) of the fiction world. They will do the right
thing because the wrong one shouldn't even be considered. The only time they do
is when it still leads down to the Right Thing to do.
The anti-hero, the bad boy, has no such DNA. The right thing
is a muscle that gets no use for most of their life so it becomes a learned
skill, which quite frankly I just find much more interesting. Because, I sort
of noticed, the good guy rarely has crunchy flaws. They have a weakness but not
flaws. Spiderman's was totally Mary Jane, but again, she was a weakness the bad
guys used over and over again. I've also noticed the way to spot the bad boy is
if he does any of the following: drinks,
smokes, has uninhibited sex, curses, doesn't have a polite society filter.
What
I'm trying to suss out in this rambly post, what lies beneath all that?
Let's
take Spike for example. Spike came on the scene with no good intentions. None.
Yet, every single favorite episode I have Spike is featured in that sucker.
Fool For Love. Once More With Feeling. Lies My Parents Told Me. (DB was also in
that episode. The fine, chocolate, scrumptious principal who actually survived
on Buffy...let's have a moment....ok.) Spike doesn't have a soul (which is the
barometer for a good guy or a bad guy in Buffyverse) who is intent on killing
Buffy. In one particular episode, he grabs his rifle. Goes to her house to blow
her head off. When gets there, he sees her crying on the backyard porch. He's
conflicted but chooses to put the rifle away, sits down, pats her on the
shoulder and becomes a momentary support system.
There's
just crunch to that and it appeals to me both as a viewer and a writer. Why
does he do that? What is it about Buffy that brings out the good guy in him?
Why does he appeal to so many people?
It's
the flaws. It's the mistakes. It's that connection, that wispy belief that
humanity is not perfect. Also, helps most bad boys have a built in redemption
storyline. Who hasn't done something they regretted? Something that they feel
they need to atone for. And there's a sort of freedom knowing you aren't
perfect and don't have to be. Perfection is unattainable and you will always
fall short of it. There's a total weight that can be lifted not just knowing
but believing down in your bones your best IS good enough by itself.
Hell, I
don't know. Maybe this is just a bigger question I must answer when I write
these stories. I want to write four, but I'll settle for three. Now I just need
to find out what occupations do bad boys usually have outside of hell raising.
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