The trope of the “chosen one” has been around forever. One character is destined to solve some ages-old problem, and is uniquely suited to doing so, usually for mystical reasons having as much to do with chance or genetic as with ability or effort. The chosen one is special for being special the same way a Kardashian is famous for being famous. Often these stories focus on how the chosen one has to grow into the role, and by the end, we learn that whatever chose them—genetics, fortune, prophecy—chose wisely.
Chosen-one stories can be great. They can be stories of self-discovery,
growth, courage, beating the odds. But the
“chosen one” setup isn’t strictly necessary for any of those things. One can
discover oneself, grow, be courageous, and beat the odds without being “chosen,”
and I’d argue that it’s even more interesting for someone to succeed when they’re
not expected to, than when they
are. And the chosen-one setup risks leading
into a story about someone stumbling into their destiny, fumbling around for a
while, and then magically succeeding because of some mystical power they didn’t
have to work for. That, frankly, sounds
too much like the story of privilege:
people destined to succeed do, because the system expects them to. When push comes to shove, if the world is
dangling by a string and depending on plucky heroes to save it, I’d rather
those heroes be Frodo and Sam than Deus Ex Machina.
This is on my mind because of a few shows
lately where the entire world is hanging by that sort of string, and depending
on chosen ones to save it—chosen ones who may even actually be pretty
incompetent, but for some reason, the entire world has entirely abdicated its
self-preservation responsibilities to heroes who have nothing to recommend them
other than that someone said they were supposed to be the saviors. Which makes me ask, why? Why would everyone just sit back and leave
everything to this singular elf, or whatever?
That’s like an entire soccer team saying “welp, we can sit on the
sidelines and eat bonbons instead of playing this match, because we’ve got a
6-year old goalie who will take care of everything, and some crystal ball told
us in vague terms that that might work.”
While meanwhile, the fate of the entire world rests on that one soccer
match. That’s not how the world should
operate. And it makes it awfully hard to
root for the credulous sideline players.
I’m cheering for the 6-year-old, sure, but wouldn’t you rather watch a
story about a whole soccer team pulling together for victory?
And there’s a bigger issue lurking, that makes all this worth discussing here. There’s undeniable cool to the idea that one person
can, through their own small actions, save the world. And it could be so empowering. Indeed, chosen
ones often come from the ranks of the underestimated—girls, minorities, the
physically unthreatening—which could make it even more empowering. But it’s only empowering when the heroes (and
their allies) are themselves responsible for the victory. When fate is responsible, or other mystical
forces, then it’s those mystical forces that retain all the power, not the
heroes themselves. For a hero’s tale to
be truly inspiring, I think, the hero has to have agency, will, and competence
independent of fate. That doesn’t mean
they can’t be “chosen.” But that can’t
be the only thing they are.
Into
the Badlands (AMC, new Winter 2015.
High-concept martial arts action/adventure.)
Watched: series so far.
Premise: In a post-apocalyptic feudal world dominated
by motorcycles and bladed weapons, one samurai mentors an orphan who is
apparently destined to unlock a better future for all.
Promise: This is, at its heart, a
very traditional samurai story—its main distinction from those is that its
setting is American rather than Chinese—the tribal wild-west that emerges after
a techno-apocalypse. But aside from its
setting and its live-action hyper-realistic aesthetic, it’s not radically
different from, say, the Ninja Scrolls or any number of other warring-ninja
animes. It’s gorgeously filmed and
(especially pleasing for a Hong Kong action junkie like myself), phenomenally
well-choreographed. So from a sheer
prettiness standpoint, it’s great. From
a story standpoint, less so. The focus
on aesthetic beauty makes the whole thing so stylized that the characters never
come across as people worth caring about, the pace is glacially slow, and it
has trouble deciding whether it’s a story about the destiny of our Chosen One
kid or about the feudal conflict he’s plunked in the middle of.
Even stranger, that feudal conflict
is a confusing battle-of-the-sexes in which nearly every woman is either a
caretaker or a complete fighting badass sexual vixen who manipulates men
emotionally and has been a victim of sexual assault or oppression. And I can’t shake the feeling that the women
are all someone’s vaguely BDSM-inflected sexual fantasy, in which women’s power
comes from their sexuality and their strength comes from their anger at having
been oppressed. And on one hand, I’m all
for women wearing fetish boots and carrying knives in their cleavage if they
want, and being angry about oppression, but on the other hand, there’s a
troubling circularity to the “strength through sexiness and/or oppression”
thing that’s worth a post of its own. And
it really bugs me that I think this story could be interpreted as some as a
sort of feminist revolution
Verdict: Pretty problematic. But I watched it for the pretty.
The
Magicians (Syfy, new.
Supernatural drama.)
Watched: first 5 episodes or so
Premise: Harry Potter meets Narnia
but the characters are grad-school age.
An adaptation of the book series of the same name.
Promise: So there’s this secret
magic grad school, and only some people are chosen to get in, and the main
character is destined to save the entire world from a shadowy evil that is
somehow related to a parallel world, but in the meantime we have to worry about
the sorts of things that I guess 20-somethings worry about, like exams and
hooking up and parties. (My friends and
I call this preoccupation with ordinary life in an extraordinary setting the
“Tower Prep” problem.) This show has a lot
of potential, but it’s mired down in stereotyped characters, manufactured
drama, and what I can only describe as immaturity. These people are supposed to be grownups, but
they all act sort of angsty and bratty.
I don’t want to be one of those grumps who says young people should grow
up or get offa my lawn, but that’s really how I feel about these characters. They are handed something phenomenally
special—the ability to use and study magic—and their reaction is at once
frivolous, cruel to those on the outside of their ivory-towered walls, and
ill-suited to the apocalyptic danger that lurks in their margins. Our hero seems pretty incompetent, but
everyone just seems to trust that he’s destined to save the world. And don’t get me started on the show’s
treatment of the central female character, whose central personality trait is
“desperation” to such an extent that she may yet inspire me to write an entire
post entitled “Women Are Desperate.”
Verdict: I wanted to like it, but too often I find it
frustrating.
Shadowhunters:
The Mortal Instruments (Freeform, new.
Supernatural drama.)
Watched: first 5 episodes
Premise: Young woman discovers all at once that demons are real, that she’s born into a race of demon hunters, and that it's kind of up to her to resolve a world-threatening rivalry in the "shadow" world. Based on the fantasy series by Cassandra
Claire.
Promise: This show is oddly engaging.To be clear: It’s not good. It’s silly and scenery-chewy and cheesily
atmospheric and young-feeling. The cast
were pretty clearly chosen for their looks, not their nuanced acting. The demons literally dissolve into a spray of
sparkles. And yet, it succeeds better
than The Magicians, in significant part because the prevailing thrust in the
characters’ reaction to world-threatening danger is to pull together and care about
each other rather than indulging catty and callous rivalries. There’s no such
thing as a young woman who isn’t a leather-clad bombshell—it feels like a man’s
idea of what a “strong woman” is—but even so, it seems clearthat the show is
trying to be sex- and sexuality-positive rather than presuming a rape culture
the way Badlands does. It has many of
the same flaws as the others, especially that it too often credits success to magical
forces, rather than the character’s agency, but it’s also a story (albeit a
somewhat whiny one) about personal struggle, growth, and competence. Overall, much the same appeal as Lost Girl,
actually.
Verdict: I’m not entirely proud of
this, but I kind of enjoy it.
The
Shanarra Chronicles (MTV, new. Fantasy.)
Watched: first several episodes
Premise: When a magic tree begins dying, a group of
teens are destined to save the world from demonic evil by bringing the tree’s
seed…somewhere. Based on the fantasy book series of the same name.
Promise: This show is sort of hilariously awful, and
yet there’s just enough a hint of sparkle to it that my friends and I have
begun using it as Interactive Television.
The main character is a young elven woman of great privilege and
virtually no personality except that she gets jealous for no real reason. She is joined on her quest by a half-elf who
I guess is supposed to be cute, because despite his almost complete
incompetence, he’s the corner of what’s shaping up to be a love triangle
between the elf and the third of our trio, a roguish young human woman. The women wear ridiculously silly outfits,
like leather pants with strapless bustiers that somehow also have hoods,
because I guess every bustier needs a hood.
The re’s a druid named Allanon, which they insist on pronouncing like
Al-Anon, the support group for families of alcoholics. The premise of the show is that for every
leaf that falls from the dying tree, a new evil enters the world, so the show
has a built-in ticking clock, and yet there’s no sense of urgency at all. In fact, much like Interactive Television
masterpiece Merlin, the characters pretty much undertake every plan without
bothering to collect adequate information, and half-ass their way through it,
leading to inevitable, but completely avoidable, partial failure. I could go on and on and on.
Verdict: Sort of gloriously awful.
On the DVR/Unrviewed: I’m still too embarrassed
to list them all. But maybe I’m catching up? A little?
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