Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Bring 'Em Back: Part 1

Have you ever noticed that in popular media, bad guys keep getting resurrected? Think about it. If there was a psychotic, mass-murdering despot in the past thousand or so years, some idiot is trying to resurrect, reanimate, or reincarnate said murderous bastard. Hell, that’s the plot of at least twenty movies and a whole bunch of novels.

There’s always an exchange like:

“My god, they’re bringing him back!”
“Algos the Unstoppable? They wouldn’t dare!”
“Oh, they dared! They totally dared!”
“Well, we’re screwed. Starbucks run?”
“Absolutely!”

NOTE: They generally don’t have Starbucks references. It just felt right.

Basically, a nigh-unstoppable killing machine/evil wizard/dark god is being brought back and the heroes are questing all over the place to get all ten of the McNuggets of Ultimate Truth, ignoring the obvious solution.

What’s the obvious solution? Well, the nigh-unstoppable baddy was obviously stopped by somebody, presumably a hero or heroes. Just resurrect them and have ‘em do it again.

Tomorrow: Part 2

4 comments:

Kammorremae said...

I prefer the even more obvious solution: kill the guy performing the resurrection. Worry about sealing Genghis Khan's soul away later; today, we kill his descendants.

Anonymous said...

That more or less sums up the plot for "Ba'al: the storm god" from sci-fi-channel.
1)Dude awakens storm god that tried to enslave the human race a few millenia ago.
2)Dude gets screwed and dies. (ofcourse)
3)Good guys awaken storm god's father , that gave the storm god a whoppin' the first time.
4)Father battles with son, through some weird energy beams into clouds.
5)Government nukes clouds (props for actually trying to nuke a god)
6)Father kicks son's ass.
7)Everyone is safe again ('til the next dude comes along and releases the storm god)

Anonymous said...

Well, that is in fact what one does, bring back the guy who put the hammer down on the big evil (now getting resurrected) dude the last time to put the hammer down on the big evil (now getting resurrected) dude once more. The problem is, the hero character who done did put the hammer down on the big evil (now getting resurrected) dude the last time has, in his/her/its (choose one) contract a specific "ye shall reincarnate into a self doubting/self loathing/self destructing (choose one) looser/bum/good for nothing/cry-baby (choose one) until such time that the keeper of the secrets/resurrection of the big evil dude/puberty (choose one) occurs. Where upon you will go through a period of self doubt/self loathing/self discovery (choose one) before you will put the hammer down on the big bad dude in the split second before he/she/it (choose one) destroys the world/rules the world with an iron fist/violates the world/invents Enron/becomes Bernie Madoff/becomes Rod Blagojevich (choose one)" clause...

and really, with that clause in the contract... one really must think hard before tapping the hero... it gets tedious after a while... there is only so much fear and loathing one can put up with... even in Las Vegas...

Jason Janicki said...

Dammit, I wrote responses to all of your comments and then accidently navigated away from the page (and they were fantastic too). Curse you, Back Button!

This may very well start of cycle of killing and revenge that will tear the very planet apart. Though how a Back Button would seek revenge is beyond me.

Granted, how I would actually kill the Back Button in the first place is also a puzzler.