The Red Book was calling out to me today. So I decided to take time out of my working on websites, and playing WoW, and throw myself back into the Book. I flip through the thing, and its mostly just snippets of dialog or things that people discover, not really the story at all. Even these things give me the frame of reference, without the storyline. The outline of the story is pretty much in my head, I know it, and I know how the pieces fit together. (*cues Tool's "Schism" for some reason in my head*)
I think that this would make a decent television series. There is a main character, with specific ideas about the world, he grows and learns stuff over the course of the book, the other main characters change in some way, and there are antagonistic themes and characters. It has an element of science fiction, of magick, of conspiracy, of basically everything, told in a very specific narrative way. The main character is talking. You're meant to identify with his "Huh?" attitude and get introduced to things in this manner. The protagonist as the everyman who learns something earth-shattering over the course of his journey, and becomes something more than just an ordinary joe as a result.
In a way, this is also the journey of the Fool, in the Tarot. The whole of the Tarot is the journey of the Fool, in a way. He starts off as a Fool, and evolves to see how things are connected, and yet in the end, the only way to retain his sanity after seeing all that is to remain some aspect of the Fool, his foolishness, his sense of humor and his humility.
In a lot of ways, its because the main character isn't thought to think of himself as an important genius and heaped attention on is how he is able to solve the problem. He's good at putting things together. Seeing the way that things are connected, that's his gift. And when he's exposed to all these ideas he learns to put them all together. Basically. He's not a genius. He's just an ordinary person with a bit of a rebellious streak, and good tastes in music.
I mean, as a classic example, think about Luke Skywalker. Here's this farm kid, on Tatooine. Of course, his destiny and the synchronicity in the greater scheme of things is about to come calling, but he grew up just an ordinary guy with dreams of flying starfighters and stuff. He's skeptical of stuff, he asks questions, he stands up to injustice when he sees it, if he can. Those are your admirable qualities, in most heroes. He is, of course, drawn into a larger scheme of events (blame the Force), and that is beyond his control, but it is the journey that he is destined to go on.
I had the idea for the novel when I was working in a factory. There were all these people there, just, you know, working because they have to. In order to survive they have to work otherwise the phone company shuts off their phone, or whatever. But they are all just surviving. The companies own everything, and they felt like an Empire to me. So I wrote it all from an anti-corporate kind of ethos, sure. I thought, if I left here and died one day, would all the things I had done made any difference in the world? Why do only the people who do or say important things get assassinated? The common person, the every day person is way more important than any corporate figurehead or political figure. Heh, I was also listening to Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation off and on in my wife's Saturn ION in those days.
More or less, my idea was, what if the Empire intentionally or accidentally assassinates an ordinary person, because that one ordinary person has the power to change the world, for the better, with one single little idea that blooms into something revolutionary, and threatens their absolute power over everything. Would they? Well, of course they would, they're evil, right? So, in the story, BAM, that gets done, chapter one.
But the irony is that in doing so, they create the situation they wanted to avoid. Not through martyrdom or anything. That the main character goes on after being assassinated is amazing, because its a great magic trick, a grand illusion perpetrated by the mysterious Molar Mountre, who serves as the story's wise old sage or Obi-Wan or whatever. Well, the story evolves from that point, essentially, because its much more deep than the Empire just killing people. Really. But, I'm not here to give the plot away, just describe the Hero.
Essentially, the whole thing gives him confidence. Basically, he thinks that he is meant to change the world, so by the law of attraction and the nature of manifestation, he does change the world. And he learns more about things from his past, which creep him out or haunt him in some way. A girl who no one seems to remember. A dream of a door. Finding out who the Empire are. Reuniting his favorite rock band. These are all the journey of the Hero of the story.
There is a lot of paradox in the character of the hero being not a superheroic person, but an ordinary person with just something like an instilled confidence to guide them to the right conclusion and somehow save everyone and change everything.
