Melodrama in BL

[Roomsky]

The finale to my trilogy of minor gripes.

 

40k is a very "larger-than-life" setting, and I for one have no inherent dislike of things getting a little corny. Most of us can sympathize with a guy named Angron, so a bit of ham and cheese is probably even welcome in this world of space elves and zany chrome skeletons. That said, like grim darkness and the rule of cool before it, I think it likely everyone has a rather concrete limit of when famous characters shout their emotions to the blood-soaked heavens begins to grate. Discuss such moments here.

 

Now, like the previous threads, please provide an example of when BL's melodrama enhanced your experience as well, so we can form a picture of not just when space opera goes wrong, but how to make it go right also.

 

The Eye-rolling: Modern Guy Haley

 

Haley does a lot of things well, and I really think that character drama is one of those strong suits. Between Perturabo and Dark Imperium, he really knows how to make you feel for inhuman demigods engineered to conquer worlds. Emperor preserve us when the bullets start flying though. Between Dante and Dark Imperium, he must have exhausted every stock combat phrase in the proverbial book. Case in point: Everything that spews from Quaramar's mouth is a cliche, and not even particularly Nurgly. On the heels of a debate about the Emperor's godhood, it was rather hard to take seriously.

 

 

The... uhm, good: Josh Reynolds

 

To be somewhat brief, Reynolds gives us a pile of drawn-out swordfights peppered with banter, but it feels natural and fun, rather than a byproduct of expectation, because the guy works hard to make us believe the characters would do such a thing. Take Lucas and Sliscus from Lucas the Trickster for example: both characters are smarmy bastards who favor extravagance over straight-forwardness. The whole novel builds up their similar personalities, their varying reasons for playing with their food, then pits them against eachother in a duel that's allowed to be grandiose without breaking character. Furthermore, their barbs, retorts, and the occasional intentional lengthening of the fight for sport communicate what the characters genuinely value, rather than just for the sake of false tension.

[bluntblade]

The McNeill Tendency Which Is Unparalleled In The Heavy-Handedness Of His Similes and Metaphors

I've read three depictions of Isstvan V. One of them, in The First Heretic, is huge and visceral, characters swallowed up by the carnage and Astartes struggling to see what's going on further away, so far does the battlefield stretch. Massacre's is huge in the way that FW work typically is, that military history scale. The other, in Fulgrim... just tells me that it was, dude, so big, like big you wouldn't believe. Like nothing could match its intensity. Apparently. Didn't really feel that big to me, I pictured Ferrus with a company and Fulgrim with a company, even though I knew that was wrong.

 

This comes up with characters too, wherein we are told that they're amazing and often given precious little to show for it, or worse events that actively contradict how he's trying to sell them. Horus, brilliant-est General ever, lets two Legions assault up a hill on foot without any apparent use of Titans or air support at that stage.

[mc warhammer]

i think the melodrama was a little less corny when things were tongue-in-cheek because that was the whole point 

 

i just accept everything as melodramatic. in an odd way, some of the grimdark/bleak tends to balance that out (by subverting the expectation of a heroicism/win).

 

 in any other fictional setting, titles like soul hunter, blood reaver and void stalker would make me actual lol...but it's perfectly fine here.

[Xisor]

Oddly, I don't find Guy's stuff melodramatic as much as... dramatic. That is: emotional, evocative, tragic, twinged with little touches of comedy.

 

With Josh - I often find his stuff a bit on the cynical and comic side. Flippant, if you will. Like ADB's wise-cracking, genre savvy protagonists (a fan perception I 'see what they're getting at', but also think most have totally encountered an arse/elbow exception). I much prefer his work when it's earnest and substantial (see Neferata, Road of Skulls).

 

He trod a great line in the Fabius duo, by having characters that are innately a bit more melodramatic by their nature, and using that to tell substantial stories, but I also enjoy "boring" or maudlin characters.

 

(I'm less keen on boring stories with characters told boringly. See Chris Wraight's Swords of the Emperor for Ludwig Schwarzhelm - a phenomenally boring character who carries an incredibly good story.)

 

In that respect, I love a story that brings to life someone who isn't a wise-cracking smartass maverick. Someone like Dante (boring!) in Guy's recent novels, or whatshisname from Clan Raukaan who 'ruined' the Iron Hands lore (boring!), told brilliantly by Guymer in "Eye of Medusa".

 

(I'm ecstatic about the forthcoming "Voice of Mars", and Even started reading the Primarchs series in an effort to get to Ferrus Manus, accordingly.)

 

To be honest, I think I should come clean - I've a deep seated and unstated conviction here:

 

It sounds to my snap-judgemental, prejudiced wee snobby mind that you lot just don't like characters who're not cynical, and conflate earnestness with bleeding-heartedness and taking things seriously with melodrama!

 

( :P I realise you're all rich, complicated people. Even if you do hold that opinion, you'll likely have compelling reasons that I just haven't yet considered.)

 

----

 

Am I out of touch?

No, it's the kids who are wrong.

[Roomsky]

 

Intelligent commentary, invariably containing the word "cracking"

 

Oh, I think Haley has a tremendous talent for drama. The emotional finale of Perturabo is still the gold-medal winner for saddest a BL book has made me. I just don't think he knows when to reel it in, at all really. Again, the ending of Dark Imperium was quite moving until the daemon showed up. Ham and cheese is fine, even, but on the heels of Guilliman's ruminations both are cheapened, IMO. Furthermore, I don't think he's even especially talented at describing warfare, which may also be the stem of my issues with his combat dialogue. When everything is overblown, it's hard for otherwise great moments to have any impact.

 

In regards to a preference for characters being smarmy, I think it's more the added bonus of such characters that they can do some lampshade hanging more often than the Schwarzhelm types. I certainly have no issues with a stoic character, either, just that when they suddenly start joining in the

 

"I will destroy you!"

 

"No, it is you who shall be destroyed!"

 

It's that much weirder coming from the fellow who has said a grand total of six things before that point.

[mc warhammer]

just to clarify; i wouldn't want what i find melodramatic about 40k to change. it's all part of the enjoyment (for me)

[Bubble_Helmet]

I love some cornball dialogue sometimes. Makes it feel like a 30's space opera serial, a really violent one. But, when it goes into 80's action movie fake tough guy, clearly written by a nerd, cheeseball dialogue is when I begin to lose interest.

 

I find myself skipping over nearly every battle/duel/what-not/what-have-you, because I find them so incredibly dull. 

 

I'm not expecting James Joyce but I like the character driven moments in these stories because that's the angle we don't get from playing the game. The game is all about bloodshed and battle. I enjoy the human conflict, the interplay of personalities, and getting a peek into the day to day life of this grim dark wonderland.

 

Edit:

I just thought of an example. Essentially the entirety of the Eisenhorn series. I get the idea behind it. Sam Spade: Inquisitor. But for me the characters just come off as hollow, cookie cutter tough guys. I would just prefer the inner narration of a character not remind me of Marv from Sin City.

 

“If he speaks again without me knowing who he is, I will throw him out of the window. And I won't open it first.”

 

“What the hell are you doing, trooper?” he managed to bark, his pronounced Adam's apple bobbing furiously.

“Performing the ministry of the sacred Inquisition,” I told him, and shot him through the head.

 

But, again, I don't expect literary marvels from the Black Library.

 

[Marshal Rohr]

Angaria means enslaved in Latin. Or duty. And also post. But obviously the connection is for the enslaved option.

[Phoebus]

I'm right there with you, Bubble_Helmet.

 

Speaking for myself, if we're going by the definition of the word -- sensational and exaggerated -- it could be argued that Warhammer 40k (and the Horus Heresy) is inherently melodramatic. The setting is defined by the pervasive influence of the Ruinous Powers and the constant conflict they encourage. On the macro scale, that gives us an environment defined by violence and ignorance; on the micro scale, we get larger-than-life protagonists and antagonists whose personalities are informed by Homer, but who also happen to wield incredibly potent, destructive technologies.

 

So I expect characters in this setting to be quick to violence, vainglorious, vindictive, suspicious of the unknown, and envious of others. No issues there. I see two recurring problems, though:

1. Authors often don't take into account the context of their own characters: the way they behave is informed more by the plot's needs than by their background. We are often told why this is the case, but the case made is not always convincing. This is especially true when it comes to primarchs and other powerful personalities.

 

An example of this near and dear to my heart can be found in Descent of Angels. Mitch Scanlon gives you an indication of Luther's burgeoning envy of the Lion earlier in the novel, which, in the background of the intervening years, turns into an emotion powerful enough for that man to almost let his best friend/adopted son/brother figure get assassinated. He finally expresses all these feelings in an exaggerated monologue that really should have had no effect on Zahariel -- who himself should have been behaving like a psycho-conditioned, mentally indoctrinated living weapon by that point.

 

2. Authors often choose the wrong time and place to have their characters appeal to the reader or express what they're thinking or feeling.

 

A classic example of that is the dialogue referenced earlier in the topic: we often get while two combatants are trying to slaughter each other. A brilliant way of handling this better is seen in "Lord of the Red Sands": Angron doesn't scream out his feelings or roar out arguments with the Loyalist World Eaters he's trying to slaughter. Rather, Dembski-Bowden gives us insight into what's going through Angron's damaged mind, and saves the dialogue for the after action. The exchange between him and the dying Kauragar is far more poignant than it would've been if delivered in the midst of sword-swings.

[Phoebus]

Angaria means enslaved in Latin. Or duty. And also post. But obviously the connection is for the enslaved option.

 

The root word (which, as with most Greek words, probably has some kind of Indo-European origin) is αγγαρεια (ag-gar-REE-a), and essentially means "obligatory, unpleasant service."

[Xisor]

That's an interesting point, Phoebus, by definition the setting is inherently melodramatic *in the facts of the matter*. Hive cities, spaceships, laser guns, planets exploding, galactic conflict, improbable superhumans and aliens.

 

But, in the context of the stories themselves - the people inside them - this should all be drama or 'business as usual'.

 

In that respect, most melodrama we'd imagine is the mundane being hyperinflated. (A fine example here from Frasier...)

 

Dr. Mel Karnofsky: Frasier, It could be a thoracic strain!

Daphne: or a bulging disc!

Regan Shaw: Yes, impinging on your lumbar nerve!

Frasier: Yes. It could easily be any one of those things. But, did you also consider that it might be the stripper chained to my wrist?

 

In that way, I think I start to appreciate where it becomes vexing for people, and in various places.

 

Heavens, it'd be like revealing some sort of long-dead brother as still alive, or a hidden twin, or...

 

Having the characters follow the plot without resistance. No "oh, :cuss" when some dramatic twist occurs, but bizarrely (out-of-character) leaning into it?

 

Though by the same measures, some characters (and, indeed, real people it seems) are themselves inherently melodramatic, or at least sensitive to it!

[Ascanius]

I think there's a difference between "pulpy" and "melodramatic", and I think Warhammer 40,000 leans more towards the former, whereas something like the Transformers or G.I. Joe cartoon series are melodramatic - good vs. evil, simplistic motivations, et cetera.