City of Nouns

I finally got to watch the movie version of The City of Bones this weekend. I would have seen the thing when it came out, but I couldn’t get anyone to go with me. Some of my friends are fellow readers/fans of the books, but the stinky reviews scared everyone away.

But I was undaunted. Some of my favorite movies are loathed by critics. Of course, I was a little worried about Jamie Campbell Bowers, whom I’d only seen as a glowering Volturi vampire who wore too much makeup.

It was clear in the first few minutes, though, that the filmmakers for some reason decided to ignore the plot of the book in favor of just pulling out the nouns:

Shadowhunters! Mortal Cup! Angels! Demons! Silent brothers! Portals! Magic coffee!

I’m pretty curious whether this business made any sort of sense to someone who hadn’t read the book. I’m guessing not so much.

This list could be longer, but these are, for me, the standout moments:

       1.  PanDEMONium

This film showed a lot of faith in its audience right out of the gate. For example, the sign for the club Pandemonium breaks the word into three parts so that it’s really super clear that the name contains the word DEMON.

Uh, folks, most of the people buying tickets for this movie like to read. Entire books. Pretty sure most of us don’t need the Hooked on Phonics treatment. A lot of us probably even know that Clare is referencing Milton’s Paradise Lost.

      2. Jace wasn’t funny anymore

He was, however, extremely concerned about his hair. And also, if there is another outing, please make sure he keeps his shirt on. That, or feed the kid a whole bunch of sandwiches or something.

      3. Simon doesn’t get turned into a rat.

What’s that about? 

4. Blech

There was surprisingly little romance, but the one big scene we did get?

 Glowy CG flowers, possibly leftover from Avatar, and a Demi Lovato song. 
 I just can't even. 

       5.   Abandon all logic, ye who enter here 

In keeping with the nouns from the book, Jace takes Clary to see the Silent Brothers, whose masks seem to have been purchased at Party City. Clary remembers a whole bunch of stuff, then passes out for the fourteenth time. At which point Jace announces that the spell blocking her memory is too strong! It must be broken by the warlock who put it there!

Wha-huh? Yes, the girl just had four minutes of flashbacks, so clearly the memory block is still working great.  

6.   Listen all y’all, it’s a sabotage

In the final few minutes of this carnival ride, Hodge says to Valentine “If you lie to them and tell them they’re both your children...”

...thus effectively destroying the entire plot of book 2. So the good news seems to be, they aren’t going to even bother making another one of these.

Perhaps somewhere in Hollywood right now they’re on the hunt for another book filled with lots of cool-sounding nouns. 

jk

The movie Life of Pi is coming out in theaters soon. I won’t be a spoiler monkey but every time I see the trailer, I’m just reminded of the “jk!” moment at the end of this book. The author pulls you in to his increasingly fantastic tail, and then he pulls the rug out from under you at the very end.

Let’s call this the “jk” effect. There’s actually a lot of debate these days about whether or not adding “Lol” or a winky face at the end of an insulting sentence takes all the sting out of the words that preceded it. Kids accused of cyber-bullying are even pulling “the emoticon defense”—the premise of which is that it’s okay to say something horrible as long as you put a J after it.

This defense isn’t holding up too well in court, which is sort of comforting, I suppose. But what about the jk effect in stories? Sometimes the entire story is based on pulling the rug out from under the reader. For example, we just read Saki’s classic short story “The Open Window” in my ninth grade class, and that story is built on—literally—a jk moment. The character of Vera convincingly spins a frightening ghost story for a stranger, and sets him up to be scared nearly to death—all for her own amusement. It’s an old story, but one can very easily imagine this girl with a cell phone in her hand, Instagramming a picture of the poor dude’s face as he runs away screaming.

In YA, the jk effect might considered alongside the “To Be Continued…” effect. You’re reading, and you think you’re going to find out what happens to the MCs by the time you reach the last page, but…just kidding! Book II coming in May 2014!... ;)

Sometimes the jk is really well done: I’d cite the central relationship of City of Bones as an example of an effective one. Again, I won’t spoiler it for anyone, but I think Cassandra Clare gets a lot of mileage out of the mistaken identity, making the moment when things are straightened out that much more powerful. This one is more of a “wow” or an "I knew it!" than a “jk.” What’s the difference? It's completely subjective...but...that moment in the new Breaking Dawn film, when Jacob dismisses the events of the previous three films with one sentence? (Everything you thought you felt was because of Nessie, Bella!). That felt like a jk to me. Then again, that film is actually predicated on an even bigger jk.

A cruel jk is a major part of the plot in Will Grayson, Will Grayson, but this time it’s not the author pulling the strings, but a character. One of the Wills (the lower-case one) is devastated when he finds out that the boy he’s had an online relationship with is actually his friend Maura messing with him. The internet is probably the birthplace of the true jk moment, actually, because it’s the perfect place to have an unreal relationship. Online we all hide behind avatars and screen names, and it’s all too easy to publish a lie and call it the truth.

That one's less a jk than a betrayal—but I think worst-case scenario, an author’s jk can become a betrayal. For example, imagine if Harry Potter book 7 had ended with Harry waking up in the Dursely’s, realizing it was all a dream.

The just kidding moment is probably part of our culture at this point, though. We’re post-post modern these days: we like our superheroes jaded and nearly broken (witness the latest installments of Batman and James Bond). The true jk moment involves twisting a knife—figuratively, at least—at least a little. I’m not an emoticon expert, but if there’s a snarky smirk-face emoji, that’s probably the face of the jk. In a world of instant and constant communication, we feel collectively free to say whatever we feel at every moment. The thing is, when I was a teenager, those fleeting moments of venting weren’t posted online—they weren’t going to be accessible, in print, forever. And some things you say can’t unsay with all the smiley faces in the world.

Maybe the true test of the jk, in art or in life, is whether or not it ends with a smile (or a wow)…or a L. Once you’re in on the scam, you want to be impressed with the ingenuity it took to lure you in. Not feel like you’ve wasted your money or your time. Or like an idiot because of an imaginary tiger. (Jk? ;)

Sidekicks

I’m re-reading City of Bones now, mainly so that I can picture the MCs as I please one last time before I see the movie next summer. And after seeing Jamie Campbell Bower’s over-the-top vampiric glaring in Breaking Dawn 2, I’m definitely going to finish re-reading the series.

In both these series, the sidekick gets the supernatural short end of the stick, and I realized that almost always happens in these epic YA stories. Poor Jacob, whose fate I have lamented before, ends up imprinting on a tiny baby (in the case of the film, a creepy CG baby—but kudos to Taylor Lautner for keeping the creep factor to a minimum here. Give that boy some kind of award). But if you think about it, the only reason Jacob even had to turn into a werewolf in the first place was because he was hanging out near Bella. Her torrid love affair with Edward is what kept the bad (non-vegetarian) vampires from just passing through. If James hadn’t caught a whiff of old Bella, poor Jake would never have had to figure out what to buy his ten-year-old girlfriend for Christmas.

Clary’s BF, Simon, also gets the shaft when he gets bitten and turns into a depressed vampire. That poor schmuck would never have been messed up in the supernatural world if he hadn’t been besties with a Shadowhunter. Not that Clary knew what she was—in another common trope, the bel inconnu, Clary only thought she was a regular girl—her special secret identity was hidden from her until that fateful first day at Pandemonium.

A lot of these series have both these character archetypes: in The Vampire Diaries, Elena thought she was a regular girl, albeit one who had a thing for vampires, but, no, wait, she’s a Doppelganger! And her best friend also gets drafted into the supernatural game—Bonnie’s a witch—who knew? In Elena’s case, her other bff becomes a vamp, her brother’s now a vampire hunter, and she’s even a vamp herself.  

The witch-best friend has been done before on Buffy, of course (and Buffy is a perfect example of the regular girl—not really! theme). The Scooby gang also got supernaturalized: everyone but Xander was a witch or a werewolf, ex-demon or Key. Eventually the writers started to give Xander the power to “see”—but it didn’t last...(see heartbreaking Nathan Fillion eye-gouging scene!)

These poor sidekicks always get sucked in, sooner or later. They are the ones we readers identify with. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been specially chosen for anything much—and I’m pretty sure I have no latent magical gifts. But the Simons and the Xanders are my way in to the story. Like Simon, I’d be listening to Jace describe Shadowhunters and portals and runes and going, “What?” But, once they’ve served that purpose for us, given us our way in, they do tend to get sucked in to the supernatural craziness. Sometimes it’s so they can help out, sometimes it gives them a reason to keep hanging around the madness.

 So here’s to the sidekicks—the ones who aren’t chosen for anything special, who are never the coolest person in the room, but they show up anyway. They follow their friends into the fray, and sometimes they don’t make it out in one piece. It’s hard to be chosen—but it seems to me it’s even harder to be the chosen one’s best friend.