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A few days ago I scribbled out a drabble and threw it at FFN. I didn't think much of it at the time but I wonder increasingly if the point actually got across. In a way it's one of my pretentious experimental works, playing intensely with preconceived notions and previous knowledge based on canon. I have no idea if it works, since the only reviewer so far didn't have that previous knowledge, and a bunch of other Henry fans expressed approval it without comment.
But, okay, I feel the need to blab about what it was "about" somewhere, even if that's kind of authorially dishonest. (The work should make the point, etc etc...)
When we hear about sympathetic characters doing unsavory things in unfortunate circumstances -- specifically, when we hear them recount these things themselves -- we get perspective and context that very few others have. It's striking how quickly moral judgments turn around when (for example) we learn that a murder had a motive, and that motive was revenge for something reprehensible.
But most of the time, we are on the outside, and we perceive creepy strangers as creepy.
That's half the point of this drabble -- to challenge fans' sympathy. This is what that incredibly sad moment in his life looked like to anyone else. And it looked like unprovoked mass murder. The kid wiped out a village.
The other half of the point is to challenge the absence of sympathy. It's precisely because we know Henry's take on the situation that we can read between the lines of this account. The villagers witnessed his parents' incredible neglect, and offered no aid. Owing to his otherness (which may have very well been a result of the aforementioned), they had little concern for him and would have preferred it if he had not been in their space. Ultimately, when Henry snaps, they attribute the incident to his inherent otherness all along.
But we know he had reasons. For starters, one might wonder if he should have been expected to care about so many people who did not care about him. Beyond that, we know for a fact that there was a big Something that made him snap -- the death of the one who was essentially his foster mother -- and was directly caused by the villagers themselves.
And that part, the fact that the villagers might never understand the role they played from day to day as they went about living their lives as perfectly normal people, is the central tragedy I was going for.
(Does that come across at all? Maybe I'm just too obsessed with thinking about school shooters and the like and it's always at the front of my mind.)
But, okay, I feel the need to blab about what it was "about" somewhere, even if that's kind of authorially dishonest. (The work should make the point, etc etc...)
When we hear about sympathetic characters doing unsavory things in unfortunate circumstances -- specifically, when we hear them recount these things themselves -- we get perspective and context that very few others have. It's striking how quickly moral judgments turn around when (for example) we learn that a murder had a motive, and that motive was revenge for something reprehensible.
But most of the time, we are on the outside, and we perceive creepy strangers as creepy.
That's half the point of this drabble -- to challenge fans' sympathy. This is what that incredibly sad moment in his life looked like to anyone else. And it looked like unprovoked mass murder. The kid wiped out a village.
The other half of the point is to challenge the absence of sympathy. It's precisely because we know Henry's take on the situation that we can read between the lines of this account. The villagers witnessed his parents' incredible neglect, and offered no aid. Owing to his otherness (which may have very well been a result of the aforementioned), they had little concern for him and would have preferred it if he had not been in their space. Ultimately, when Henry snaps, they attribute the incident to his inherent otherness all along.
But we know he had reasons. For starters, one might wonder if he should have been expected to care about so many people who did not care about him. Beyond that, we know for a fact that there was a big Something that made him snap -- the death of the one who was essentially his foster mother -- and was directly caused by the villagers themselves.
And that part, the fact that the villagers might never understand the role they played from day to day as they went about living their lives as perfectly normal people, is the central tragedy I was going for.