Real life psycho

So I'm sitting in the break room at work trying to read but there's a really gripping show on the History channel.  It's a special on Nazi technology.  And then I got my idea for the real psycho to blog about for my Readings in the Genre class.  And no, it's not the obvious Adolf Hitler.  No, I'm blogging about the horrible Josef Mengele, the doctor from Auschwitz, nicknamed the "Angel of Death" and user of many aliases to elude capture.  The filth that never was punished for his crimes.  As though his experiments aren't bad enough, he died never having remorse or regret for what he did and insisting that he "had never personally harmed anyone in his whole life." (quote from his son in an article in wikipedia) That to me is the definitive qualification for a psycho.

Josef Mengele experimented heavily on twins in the Auschwitz camp.  He apparently was a hereditary biologist before the Nazi regime and was given the power as the camp doctor to do what he wanted.  He'd separated the twins out from the masses heading for the chambers and be nice to them and give them candies.  And then the next moment shoot and dissect them while their bodies were still warm.   Or working on them while they were alive without giving them any anesthesia.  We've read some pretty gruesome things in this class, but Mengele takes the cake.  He's truly what nightmares are made from.  I won't scar you all with the details of his human experiments.  But it goes back to a theme I've seen discussed by classmates a number of times now.  It's frightening what a person can do when given unlimited power and authority over others.  

This guy just makes my skin crawl.  I read about a number of real serial killers and others for this class.  But there's just something about this guy that feels so much worse than most.  I just don't understand how someone can be "nice" to the kids one second and then so brutal the next.  The best explanation I can come up is that he really, truly, believed that they weren't humans at all.  Nothing more than blades of grass.

Throughout this class I've tried to find something of value to take from the real and fictional stories.  More than just what I can learn about the craft of writing.  My wife is always trying to help me see what positives can come out of such destruction.  That was kind of the tone of the afore mentioned special on the History channel.  No question, the Nazi regime was horrible.  But the special focused on the advancements for all of humanity in the form of science and technology.  Recording devices leading to our DVDs, or weapons leading to the jet engine and rocket technology to name a few.  The best I can come up about Mengele is that the rest of the world can be warned about giving someone too much power.  But I'm sorry, that's not enough.  It's disgusting that one, there are people in the world who think they can get away with anything, and two, that so many of them have gone unpunished.  Or unpunished for a while before getting caught.  Or getting caught but able to live a quiet life in prison instead of being punished the way they should be.  Oh, wait, that doesn't sound Christian does it.  Well, on this point I refuse to back down.

The Killing Joke- DC Comics

While I love superheroes, I never collected any comic books until after high school. Most of what I know about the legends of Batman and the Joker is from Wikipedia or my friends growing up. Approaching this comic in the mindset of this Readings in the Genre course I was intrigued not only in Joker's backstory but also in what he was trying to do. He's trying to corrupt Gordon. It's just like the move the Dark Knight. All he wants to do is corrupt the Batman by any means possible. He'll do whatever he can to break someone down. In the movie, all he corrupts is Harvey Dent. Batman gets close when he uses the cell phone technology to find the Joker. But in the end he leaves the power with Fox because he knows that the power is too powerful.

So in The Killing Joke we see the question I've wondered for years. How will it end? Will they kill each other? This graphic novel isn't just about trying to break down Gordon. It's proving the point that "everyone is just one bad day away from crazy." Both the Joker and Batman have horrible back stories. But we see the differences in their paths. But here's the really interesting point. The Joker was already planning on crime even before the tipping point. So it's not necessarily just about the bad day to turn someone. That's why Gordon doesn't crack. That's why he's determined to bring the Joker in "by the book." Because his mind was set before he's tortured. And it's the same with the Batman. Bruce, the man, stands back at the beginning of the novel and asks how two people who don't really know each other can the each other so much. And I think we hear regret in his voice. All the origin stories for Bruce Wayne involve a desire for vengeance. But not death. It sounds like Bruce is getting tired of the fight as Batman in this novel. But even in desperation Bruce overrides the vigilante Batman for reason. It is more important to bring the Joker in the right way.

And therein is the failing in the Joker's plan.  He doesn't understand that it's more than just the "bad day."  It's the strength of character within the person and the decisions they've made before that "bad day" arrives.  That is why the Batman cannot be corrupted.  Because as dark as his life may be, Bruce still holds out on hope.  Why else would he approach the Joker at the end of the novel and offer the hand of friendship and love to help the Joker change?

Ultimately, I loved this.  It wasn't what I was expecting.  But I'm not that experienced with DC comics as I am with Marvel.  But I thought this was a great insight into their characters and motivations.  Definitely dark in places but a fun end for the assigned readings.

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Building momentum

It's been a long journey to this point.  My current WIP is something I began thinking about many years ago.  It was the subject of my 2010 NaNoWriMo victory.  But I didn't like what I had so I scrapped most of it.  I loved the idea and premise.  Just not how I executed it.  In January 2012, I started my first term as a graduate student with Seton Hill University.  My thesis is a novel.  So, I brought out Angels of Might and Mercy as a possibility.  It didn't go over very well.  But I'd expected that because I didn't like a lot of what I had.  I like the idea of immortal beings protecting mankind but I didn't want to have such a religious tone because that limits the marketability.

After many month of rewrites, I think I have a better start.  Of the 90k words I've written, I got to only keeping 11k in the fourth attempt at starting the novel.  And this time it feels good.  Thanks to NaNoWriMo (some of the best motivation I've found) I'm up to 15500 words for the WIP which is 3950 words in two days for the competition.  I hope that the 50k word goal for NaNoWriMo will help me get further through the WIP so I can spend more time in my graduate course revising the story.

NaNoWriMo 2012 and WIP update

Yes, on top of everything else I am doing another year of NaNoWriMo. Hopefully I can get this WIP close to completion for a first draft.

Current WIP word count
13311


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