V is for...

[f4f3]

From antisoppist via others:

1. Leave a comment to this post.
2. I will give you a letter. (Edited to point out, only if you ask for one, you can comment without having to do this yourself)
3. Post the names of five fictional characters whose names begin with that letter, and your thoughts on each. The characters can be from books, movies, or TV shows

clanwilliamgave me a V....

V is for Vendetta. Valiantly vanquishing varlets, vicious, vile... oh, I can't do it. The original Alan Moore character interested me far more than the movie version (which translated enough of David Lloyd's visuals to be interesting) since you never got under the mask. Where the movie was Beauty and the Beast, the original was murder in the dark. And if you get a chance, listen to David Jay's setting of "This Vicious Cabaret" - I* can probably quote it by heart.... "In no longer pretty cities there are warrant forms and chitties..."

V is for Victor von Doom, perenially harrassed by the meddling Fantastic Four, Doom survives and comes back fighting. I have a running joke with my friend Bill about Doom hiring the good hearted but dim Absorbing Man, who's always encouraging him to get out from under the heel of his abusive boss - "Doom is not pleased!", "Aye, Vic, maybe he's not pleased, but he should come down here and tell me himself."

V is also for Vialle, married off to Random, Prince of Amber as a punishment to him for abandoning a previous lover. She is a blind sculptress, who manages to charm Corwin, and his son Merlin. A still centre to all that intrigue.


Victor Ignatious MacIlvaney, of Victor and Barry, who were the campest, funniest comedy duo a student could ever be starstruck by. They would have been my Fascinating Aida, if their stars hadn't been so ascendant, and divergent. Go have a look at them on uTube.

And, finally, Victor Meldrew, who I may become, if I'm not him already.

Comments

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Dan Dare – pilot of the future. Basically, a Spitfire pilot in SPAAACE.

When I was a boy I, and both of my brothers, had a weekly comic. We’d read ours and then swop. I had The Eagle, with Dan Dare. Rugged, fair play and wavy eyebrows. I remember more about the feeling than I do of the stories. I enjoyed the anticipation of the episodic nature of each story.

Years after I moved to Australia and stopped reading the Eagle I came across a Dan Dare story where one of his own crew sells out humanity to the Mekon. The sense of betrayal still makes me want to hit people.

Dave Lister – the last human. Basically, a scouser in SPAAACE. Through a series of accidents Dave manages to end up the last living human being, many millions of years into the future and a very long way away from home. He lives in a large space ship with huge resources available to him. It ought to be paradise, but the type of paradise that would drive a normal man insane with ennui or drink or doughnuts. So the ship’s computer provides Dave with a roommate, the holographic computer generated ghost of his former roommate, who is vain, stupid, cowardly, anal, petty and cruel. The struggle to live with such an unappealing character keeps Dave sane in the face of the bleakness of being alone.

D’artagnan - basically Luke Skywalker in FRAAANCE. Not quite. He’s less involved in a fight between good and evil than he is a minor player in a fight for D’artagnan sets off poor but proud to become a famous warrior. Arrogant, chauvinistic, heroic, politically compromised, handy with a rapier he works as a spy and agent for the what passes as the government of France. Although not actually a member D’artagnan is by far the most famous member of the most famous threesome in history.

I think also of interest as a historical romance set many hundred years ago written a few hundred years ago.

Diziet “Dizzy” Sma, basically, M in SPAAACE. Dizzy isa handler for Special Circumstances, the militant wing of the Culture. Her job, when we encounter her, is to manage the relationship between Special Circumstances and mercenary general who is hired to do jobs that the Culture finds distasteful, of doubtful morality, difficult or desirable to disavow. Why the Culture can’t ask one of its Ships to run a simulacrum of the mercenary I don’t know.

The Daleks. Nazis in SPAAACE. That’s all you need to know. The main adversary of enigmatic time travelling hero, the Doctor Daleks are perhaps the most famous British science-fiction villain of all time. The Daleks have a terrifying combination of a genocidal superiority complex, resting on a deep-seated inferiority complex and near invincible* armaments. They are mutant warriors encased in a tank armed with a death ray. Racial purity, extermination and living room are their main pre-occupations. Death rays, multi-functional sink plungers and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope are their main weapons. And Fear. Responsible for more nightmares than Tim Burton the Daleks have rolled their way through the fevered imaginations of small children since the 1960’s. Fear and Surprise. No, not surprise.

In recent years they have been over used to the point of nausea. In in recent series of Doctor Who it is an even bet that if you don’t know what is going on it is part of a series long story arc involving some convoluted plot by the Daleks to steal the earth, turn all humans into Daleks or re-paint the Tardis bright pink and use it to sell coffee. What ever it is, it has to be Epic. More EPIC than last time. More EPICALLY EPIC ™ than the last lot did. And it has to fail. It has to fail because their plan is so Epic that if they succeed then that is end of the universe. So it fails, epically. An Epic fail. There’s no surprise left and little fear. They turn up every time and every time they get their eyestalks handed to them using some Deus ex Machina contrived by the ultimate god in a box.

Daleks used to be terrifying. I now find them boring.

*I say near invincible because they get the living crap kicked out of them *every single time* by some eccentric hippy armed only with a screwdriver.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

You're supposed to put this in your own journal, numpty, so that others can see it, comment, and ask for their own letter. You fail, basically, as a transmission vector for memes. The Cybermen, who police this sort of thing, will be round shortly.

Apart from that, though...

I never saw the original Dan Dare comics with any frequency, and by the time I could see them in reprint, my head had been turned by the snappy dialogue and teen angst of Stan (The Man) Lee. I always admired the art work, which was shiny and photorealistic. DD was pretty much Biggles in Space, though, and although I loved Biggles, I never wanted to be him (not the way I wanted to be Daredevil, say, or Spiderman). And we'll say nothing about the 2000AD revival of Dan Dare. Or Dan Dire.


Despite being a sci-fi nerd, I never really took to Red Dwarf. Too English, maybe, and the humour always seemed to turn on the working class character farting a lot. It did have Clare Grogan for a bit, though.

D’artagnan always struck me as a second rate swordsman with a first rate publicist. Have you ever come across The Khaavren Romances by Steven Brust? Set in the same world as him much more zippy Taltos books, they are an attempt to recreate Dumas' style in a fantasy setting. If you haven't read them, I have an easy choice of birthday present for you.

I never actually found the Daleks scary until New Who, and their first appearance with Ecclestone. He sold them to me entirely with his absolute terror when one, disabled Dalek was found in Texas. And, of course, the mirroring of his own character in the Daleks was something new for me. I wasn't so pleased with Daleks in New York, of course, but the Matt Smith Daleks are quite well done - I even liked him throwing a weapon stalk (kitchen plunger) on to a bar top to get the patrons attention. But then he can do little wrong, in my eyes.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I missed the 2000AD incarnation of Dan Dare.

Ah, Clare Grogan. Clare, Clare, Clare. Clare Grogan.

I quite liked the comody of manners involving two people who didn't have any manners.

I think it helped D'artagnan that he published his memoirs after everyone else was dead.

The first Dalek of the new series was really good. Which makes my disappointment with them more acute. Less is more.

I think the Daleks themselves are fine - just over used as a plot device and used lazily. IMHO.