Thoughts: Rules and their breakage
Oct. 13th, 2015 01:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
argentum_lsBehold, I have rambles.
One of the things that attracts me to supernatural-based shows is when there's a conflict of rules. Highlander is a perfect example of this. Our characters have to find a way to live with and balance two sets of non-complimentary rules for how to navigate reality: the real world rules vs. those of the Game. The constant questions surrounding how our characters can be decent citizens (and heroes we'd want to root for and spend time with) while still going around occasionally beheading people fascinate me. The Tomorrow People is another example, though not as extreme, because our characters are forced to live under the Prime Barrier while also needing to engage themselves in situations where killing their enemy could be useful, and not being able to can be detrimental. This is probably why I'm also most attracted to those characters who are still trying to work out what the rules are and how to live with them. The greater the cognitive dissonance the character has between the two sets of rules, the more interested I am.
This, of course, requires the supernatural side of the world to have rules, the clearer and more consistent, the better. I don't need the characters to know why the rules exist; in fact, I don't see any reason that they need to, as long as there are consequences for breaking them. After all, how many rules do we mortals follow day-to-day that we don't understand or haven't given any thought to? But there still needs to be rules that govern what the consequences of actions are. Take Mako Mermaids, for example. The worldbuilding there is crap. About the only rule consistently followed is that when the mer-characters get so much as a single drop of moisture on their skin, they transform into their mer-form. Beyond that, what their powers are, how the powers work, how magic works, what the Moon Pool is and how it works, and even the history of mermaids requires a great deal of taking the moment at face value just to not become hair-tearing. Seventy-eight episodes of H2O: Just Add Water and fifty-two of Mako Mermaids (so far), and I still can't get a handle on what exactly moon fever is, no matter how often it's been significant to an episode's plot. (Let's not even get started on whether Mako is a prequel, sequel, or canon AU for H2O.) Conversely, the range of an Immortal's ability to sense another Immortal on Highlander is highly variable, from being only a couple dozen feet to being a city block. However, one Immortal can always sense another, and their range seems to be only two dimensional, as we never get an example of an Immortal sensing another one who's above or below them. (Which could be an interesting hunting strategy, if one Immortal were to track another through traditional methods and then drop down through a hole in the ceiling for the killing blow.) (ETA: I stand corrected. There are two examples in show of Richie being able to sense another Immortal who is at least one story below him.)
Some of my interest in this is clearly about exceptionalism: "I'm not bound by yourpuny, mortal rules because I'm special." I like characters who are special in some way that either is, or could be perceived as being, really, really cool--if only the plebs knew about it. Hardly the most mature position, but also not worth trying to deny. The corollary is that I want to see all the ways in which being special is not cool, not easy, and not fun. I enjoy it when characters revel in their powers or recognize how their abilities do make their lives more interesting, while I also want to see what the cost of this is. And now we've come to the secret identity part of the supernatural setup, because part of the cost of being exceptional is the implicit danger of anyone ever finding out and trying to control or destroy it. Even exceptionalism needs to have its limits.
Once rules are established, then comes the fun of figuring out how far they apply and when, how, or if they can be broken. It also opens the door to examining how any behaviors we've been socialized to accept as perfectly normal aren't necessarily natural. The person who's learning the supernatural rules for the first time is one vehicle for asking the basic, perhaps even stupid, questions about why things are the way they are. The outsider POV is another. I've been prompting a lot recently for outside!POV on The Tomorrow People--and it would also work for Highlander, Mako, Teen Wolf, and a bunch of my other shows--wherein the observer mistakes what h/she's seeing for a cult. Again, the greater the disconnect between the two sets of rules our supernatural character has to juggle, the better this scenario could play out. Even simple rules can have complicated applications, if not in their results than in the psychological toll on keeping them, but first we have to know what they are.
One of the things that attracts me to supernatural-based shows is when there's a conflict of rules. Highlander is a perfect example of this. Our characters have to find a way to live with and balance two sets of non-complimentary rules for how to navigate reality: the real world rules vs. those of the Game. The constant questions surrounding how our characters can be decent citizens (and heroes we'd want to root for and spend time with) while still going around occasionally beheading people fascinate me. The Tomorrow People is another example, though not as extreme, because our characters are forced to live under the Prime Barrier while also needing to engage themselves in situations where killing their enemy could be useful, and not being able to can be detrimental. This is probably why I'm also most attracted to those characters who are still trying to work out what the rules are and how to live with them. The greater the cognitive dissonance the character has between the two sets of rules, the more interested I am.
This, of course, requires the supernatural side of the world to have rules, the clearer and more consistent, the better. I don't need the characters to know why the rules exist; in fact, I don't see any reason that they need to, as long as there are consequences for breaking them. After all, how many rules do we mortals follow day-to-day that we don't understand or haven't given any thought to? But there still needs to be rules that govern what the consequences of actions are. Take Mako Mermaids, for example. The worldbuilding there is crap. About the only rule consistently followed is that when the mer-characters get so much as a single drop of moisture on their skin, they transform into their mer-form. Beyond that, what their powers are, how the powers work, how magic works, what the Moon Pool is and how it works, and even the history of mermaids requires a great deal of taking the moment at face value just to not become hair-tearing. Seventy-eight episodes of H2O: Just Add Water and fifty-two of Mako Mermaids (so far), and I still can't get a handle on what exactly moon fever is, no matter how often it's been significant to an episode's plot. (Let's not even get started on whether Mako is a prequel, sequel, or canon AU for H2O.) Conversely, the range of an Immortal's ability to sense another Immortal on Highlander is highly variable, from being only a couple dozen feet to being a city block. However, one Immortal can always sense another, and their range seems to be only two dimensional, as we never get an example of an Immortal sensing another one who's above or below them. (Which could be an interesting hunting strategy, if one Immortal were to track another through traditional methods and then drop down through a hole in the ceiling for the killing blow.) (ETA: I stand corrected. There are two examples in show of Richie being able to sense another Immortal who is at least one story below him.)
Some of my interest in this is clearly about exceptionalism: "I'm not bound by your
Once rules are established, then comes the fun of figuring out how far they apply and when, how, or if they can be broken. It also opens the door to examining how any behaviors we've been socialized to accept as perfectly normal aren't necessarily natural. The person who's learning the supernatural rules for the first time is one vehicle for asking the basic, perhaps even stupid, questions about why things are the way they are. The outsider POV is another. I've been prompting a lot recently for outside!POV on The Tomorrow People--and it would also work for Highlander, Mako, Teen Wolf, and a bunch of my other shows--wherein the observer mistakes what h/she's seeing for a cult. Again, the greater the disconnect between the two sets of rules our supernatural character has to juggle, the better this scenario could play out. Even simple rules can have complicated applications, if not in their results than in the psychological toll on keeping them, but first we have to know what they are.
