Seeking The Unexpected

I realized the other night, talking to my fiancée, why I like Deed of Paksenarrion so much – and, consequently, why I didn’t appreciate Great Gatsby or East of Eden. Here’s a little bit about me.

I like the unexpected. In humor, I love Mitch Hedberg because there is no possible way to see his punch-line coming. Usually the subject matter is something you would never even think of. In general comedy, I prefer the punch-lines that are left to the audience to supply because it makes you think, and usually because it’s an unexpected concept, one you might never have thought about. I like physical comedy to the extent that action is unexpected; when it’s just action for the sake of largeness, like Dane Cook, I’m less impressed. I don’t like crude humor, and not only because it’s, well, crude, but because you can see the punch-line coming a mile away if you realize you’re watching crude humor.

In a little more morbid sense, I definitely prefer ninjas to pirates. You can see pirates coming; their sole “virtue” is sheer strength and bravado. You don’t see ninjas coming; you’re probably not expecting anything until suddenly your throat is cut. That’s why I’m also drawn to snipers and Special Forces – they’re not where you expect them to be, and suddenly your world comes crashing down around you. Now, mind you and before you call the cops, I’m only advocating such things in the face of evil – I don’t thrill at such things for the sake of themselves, but in proper application in preservation of good.

And, yes, a little self-absorbedly, I love when people assume I’m something less than I am. I like being unexpected; so go ahead, presume on my GED, on my homeschool, on my living in the country for the first 18 years of my life.

So here’s the thing: I didn’t connect whatsoever with Gatsby. He represented nothing attractive to me. I don’t get the whole rich, pretending to be rich, living like you’re rich – and I actually borderline despise the whole forbidden-love thing. And East of Eden? Well written, epic, great; here’s what I didn’t like: I still didn’t connect with the characters, and I really don’t like super-powerful bad-people, like Cathy/Kate. Those stories where the protagonist has no power to escape the arch-villain? Hate ‘em. I really do. The only point at which Kate becomes a non-threat is when she kills herself. I really, really don’t think – if a person is honest with themselves – this is often the case in peoples’ lives. We’d like it to be that way, probably, to think our downfalls are attributable to one inescapable evil person. But it’s not; usually we can’t get up because we seem incapable of making –or downright refuse to make – a good choice.

At the end of Divided Allegiance, book two of Paksenarrion, I was so deeply tied to Paks that I was crushed by her downfall. Here was a person who had been a sheepfarmer, someone no one would expect. But she worked hard, she learned everything she could, she took advantage of every opportunity to progress – and if you don’t know that about me by now, let me tell you that those are traits I borderline worship – and as a result of her doing the best she could, she still fell a long way, losing basically everything she had been working for over the previous two books.

So when she came back almost as good as before – not the same, not necessarily worse; just different – I kid you not I sent my fiancée a text just like this: “PAKS IS BACK!!!!!!!! Ha ha :-)”

That’s when you know a character has hit home. I once heard someone say Tolkien began realizing what he’d done when he would see “Frodo lives!” spray-painted on the walls of the subway. When you get that kind of reaction from your readers – that’s pure gold, is what that is. Paks did it for me; Gatsby and the Hamiltons and Trasks didn’t.

College on Monday! See you then.