Tragic, Doomed Heros

This is a really dumb quiz. But I happened to find it while I was looking up something about Sin City.

I came up Marv, but I also scored high as Dwight, and as Manute, and, somehow, as That Yellow Bastard. The fact that I’d like to whip jessica alba may have caused that last score to go up.

What Sin City Character are You?
created with QuizFarm.com

But forget the quiz. You tell Me.
Which Sin City character am I?

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I was talking about the brilliant Sin City with a friend, and about the types of heros I am forever drawn to.

I was always a huge fan of heros when I was a kid; superheros, sword-wielding barbarians. Brave space captains. I was batman and captain kirk and rocket robin hood and flash gordon, wolverine and aragorn and tarzan of the apes, john carter of mars and dray prescott, lucky starr and conan and shang-shi.

Yet, also, I loved the anti-heros best. The rogues. One of the reasons batman and wolverine and robin hood spoke to me was that they were bad guys on the side of good; robbers and vigilantes and killers, yet, with a moral code.

And then there’s the tragic, pointless quest. Bilbo and Sam facing the gates of mordor, knowing their mission isn’t really to destroy the ring, for that cannot happen against these odds. Their quest is to die trying. All is hopeless, yet I give up not my hope, I will fight and die for my quest. I will die – but I will not give up.

These things speak to me, and that’s one of the reasons I so love both Miller’s original Sin City, and Rodriguez’ brilliant film version. Because those are the characters who populate this world. Violent, angry, driven men, men who are damaged in one way or another. Men who feel doom weigh upon them, who know they’re dead, and strive only to complete the mission before it’s all over.

Miller’s heros court doom. They love, and desire, and protect. They kill brutally and without remorse, yet they stand between absolute disaster and who or whatever they choose to protect.

These men live short lives in an angry, violent, beautiful world. These are the characters I see in my head; these are the people I feel driven to write. Speaking to said friend, she knew, as only one other friend know, how I felt watching sin city.

To paraphrase, “When you saw this film for the first time, you must have felt as though someone had taken your brain and soul and put then on the screen.“. And so I did; this is what I want to write I said, when I was watching the first scene, the assassin and the beautiful woman in the rain.

This is who lives in my head, I thought, when Marv said:

‘She smells like angels ought to smell, the perfect woman… the Goddess‘,

Aand I thought it when Dwight said:

‘My warrior woman. My Valkyrie. You’ll always be mine, always and never. Never. The Fire, baby. It’ll burn us both. It’ll kill us both. there’s no place in this world for our kind of fire. Always and never. If I have to die for you tonight, I will.‘

These people speak the way I feel.

This is how I want to be described, I thought, when Dwight says of Marv, ‘He just had the rotten luck of being born in the wrong century. He’d be right at home on some ancient battlefield swinging an axe into somebody’s face. Or in a Roman arena, taking his sword to other gladiators like him. They woulda tossed him girls like Nancy back then. ‘

Doom. Tragedy. Violence. Love and lust and desire. These characters are stripped down to the raw essence of these things; they will burn out brightly, tragically, and they will take you with them if you stand in the way. But they will save you if you need saving, no matter what the cost.

These are the people who live in my head; and I envy Frank Miller more than I can say, for he too carries these people in his head, but he has a way to let them out.

As yet, I do not. Not in action, not in word. I cannot be them, and i cannot write them. Not yet.

Not yet.