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maxwell-grant · 3 years

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On Lord Hawthorne

A lot of what makes Lavender Jack special to me is the way it’s so masterfully able to create engaging, modern material out of it’s influences, and it’s creation of a genuinely timeless pulp icon that I think should serve as the ideal baseline for any and all creators who want to create stories based on pulp characters, old and new alike, in the future.

As I make my way through Season 2 and eagerly await Season 3 I’d like to take the time to talk a little about the often overlooked half of the villain duo of Season 1, Lord Hawthorne, and what I think is interesting about him. Out of the many ways pulp heroes have been reimagined into villains over the decades, Lord Hawthorne stands out to me as easily one of the best ones, as a thoughtful take on the Tarzan character.

Spoilers before the cut

The first thing everyone immediately picks about Lord Hawthorne is that he’s Tarzan, with hardly any ifs or buts about it. He’s Tarzan, and we quickly learn that he’s the villain, part of a villain duo with Lady Hawthorne, the real mastermind and kingpin in pearls behind the story’s events. Having Tarzan as the villain n a story that draws from pulp and Edwardian fiction is already an interesting start, as three of the most popular molds from which are pulp heroes are based on, three of the most popular characters as icons, are Tarzan, the Scarlet Pimpernel, and Sherlock Holmes, all three of which exist in some capacity in the world of Lavender Jack. The Gentleman Villain, The Great Detective, and The Wild Man.

Lavender Jack, as I’ve mentioned, is based on the Pimpernel, as well as other figures such as Spring-Heeled Jack and Bertie Wooster. Jack draws from icons that largely predate the pulp heroes because, in Schkade’s own reasoning, if you’re going to try and create an authentic pulp hero, it only makes sense to use as a base the characters that largely inspired them, and clearly that worked out very well. Jack is a Pimpernel remodeled and recontextualized into modern sensibilities, into an era of superheroes and webcomics.

In the Great Detective’s case, we have the figure of Madame Theresa Ferrier, who is called into the story by the Mayor to try and solve the mystery of Lavender Jack’s identity. Schkade describes Ferrier as a character that pulls from elements of detectives like Hercule Poirot and C.Auguste Dupin as well as Sherlock Holmes, in particular Jeremy Brett’s later year performances. As he describes:

In the series’ final years, Brett was getting older, sicker, hindered by bipolar medications that sapped his energy and caused him to gain weight, and he used it. His Holmes became a fading, melancholic shadow of his younger self, but with the spark of his brilliance showing through when it counted. I always found that so compelling

Ferrier is repeteadly described in-universe as “The Great Detective”, and she is both the oldest as well as the most brilliant character in the comic. Despite her age, despite her physical complications, and the tragedy that surrounds her love life, she is nonetheless incredibly skilled, strong and resourceful, able to unmask Jack and survive a confrontation with Lord Hawthorne and even nearly beat him. Ferrier draws from the Great Detectives of old, but this is a character that could never be mistaken for any of them. She’s not specifically based on any of them because, as Schkade puts it: “I wanted her to be someone I’d never get to draw in a leading role in most of my work-for-hire jobs”.

Her role in the comic ends up being one of mentorship to Jack, and despite her age being emphasized as well as the idea of her belonging to an older generation of great heroes that now gives way to the younger and hot-blooded Jack as well as Ferrier’s new partner in Honoria Crabb, Ferrier is very much another great example of where the old meets the new in Lavender Jack. Pulling from the great old archetypes but very much recognizable as her own thing.

Thing is, when it comes to Lord Hawthorne, we don’t really get that, because Lord Hawthorne isn’t really combining the idea of Tarzan with a splash of something new and outstanding and modern. He really is just Tarzan, and not a terribly layered character at that, for much of the story he’s largely just a voiceless bulldozer who exists to do the dirty work of Lady Hawthorne no matter how dirty. This isn’t at all a criticism, because I think Hawthorne being just Tarzan, with little to no bells and whistles and twists on it, is central to what makes him work not just as a great physical threat Jack must overcome (in a similar way to Bane as both a monstrous powerhouse and also having a strong connection to a powerful pulp hero), but also someone whose tragedy comes to light as we finally learn more about him. The fact that he is monosyllabic and largely devoid of any personal interests or life outside of being muscle for Lady Hawthorne is something deliberate, as outlined in a speech given by another character in Chapter 39

Her world's been changing for years, now. She's taking her place in a wider game. A more nuanced game. And you're still...Why, you're only good for one thing, aren't you? Well, maybe two, you old hound, you.

I know why you spend vast stretches of the year off in that jungle. It's not for sport, it's not to keep your edge...it's because when there's no need to fight, no struggle to win, no enemy...there's just...you.

And you know there's not really anything to you, underneath all those scars and muscles.

No dreams, no warmth, no depth. Nothing to love.

So you stay away...and that way, you can come when she calls you. You can sweep back to Gallery and show up all filthy and draw her into your powerful, savage embrace....and maintain your novelty.

All of this so you'll never have to endure a silent sunday afternoon where there's nothing to do, any no one to kill, and your lady simply...doesn't...need you.

You do know this word, don't you, Hawthorne, old fellow? "Novelty?"

And how does he respond?

Not with a denial, but an affirmation that this is ultimately all personhood amounts to, in his worldview. Just one more thing to be conquered and then used as a club to batter others with.

The very act of a character questioning their own worth and depth of personality usually tends to be a telling sign that they, in fact, have those things even if they are out of touch with them, but Hawthorne doesn’t particularly rebuff anything Van Lund’s saying. He just reaffirms his title as Lord while threatening him with violence, because violence is all he knows.

As we later learn, Lord Hawthorne isn’t, in fact, the real Lord Hawthorne, but instead he and his wife usurped the title from the real one as they escaped from the jungle, where he was only known as “the wild man”. A man who’s been forced his entire life to live in a kill-or-be-killed world, to live as an animal in constant conflict with humans, was then captured and then brutally tortured every day for over a month, and then found for the first time someone who treated him with something resembling affection, someone who ultimately turned him into a tool for her evil designs, and he readily accepts this because he has no life, no identity, outside of her. He doesn’t even know his own name.

In fact, for all we know, he might as well be John Clayton himself, except he was born in a world where being Tarzan is not the greatest thing ever and there was no Jane or ape mother to guide his malleable heart into something resembling good, and there was only Sarah to mold him into an instrument of murder at his lowest point.

I argue that Tarzan is a character that’s all about freedom and vitality, as a heroic take on an archetype that’s long been the missing link between superheroes and monsters, where the dual nature of mankind between person and ape acts not as a disorder or source of conflict but instead as the ultimate power fantasy in a character who gets the best of both with none of the downsides. Lord Hawthorne isn’t necessarily a return to form, because there is no dual nature to him. There is no gentleman, no Lord Greystoke descendant of nobility, romantic hero and great adventurer and leader of men and whatnot. There is only the ape, and what little façade has been grafted onto him by his master so he can pass off as a person, only long enough until he takes his shirt off and starts murdering people for her. While we get long extended close-ups of the icy cruelty in Lady Hawthorne’s eyes, there is none for Lord Hawthorne, because he is not cruel, he is an animal. He’s not a fighter, he’s a survivor. He lives to kill and serve the person who tells him who or what to kill.

Lord Hawthorne is what happens when you strip the Tarzan legend of the romanticism of fiction and you look at it for what it would likely result in: the tragic story of a child forced to grow in the jungle, where the concept of personhood and human decency are utterly meaningless and there is only survival, where his existence is at odds with the worlds of man and animal alike, and what happens when that sort of being receives a first contact with something resembling decency and love. Even if said first contact wasn’t with someone as evil as Lady Hawthorne, there was little chance Lord Hawthorne’s life was ever going to be anything other than just an extension of his life in the jungle, or end in anything other than tragedy, and ultimately even the characters start to pity the wild man.

Jack: All that power and stamina and fighting acumen, but yet all you seem to get to use it for is...this. Another laborious climb to another locked-room murder.

Ferrier: You've long passed the point where human lives hold any meaning. You are detached from our species, a...a stranger, loose among us. I thought the sight of you would stir distain in me, or even fear...but as I look at you now...I feel for you only the strangest sort of pity.

What I like most about Lord Hawthorne as a take on Tarzan is that, far too often, we see intended “deconstructions” or reinterpretations of the classic pulp heroes, or even superheroes, that largely just make them villainous by extrapolating the worst possible interpretations of the character’s traits or real-life circumstances around them to villainize them, or outright invent faults and problems that weren’t there in the source material, usually to put one character over the other. The entirety of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is built on this, as is a lot of Superman parodies built on getting the most graphically shocking results possible.

I'll admit it’s somewhat hypocritical of me to criticize this entirely, because it’s an impulse that I sadly admit I myself have fallen into in my own writings on characters not my own, as anyone who’s ever talked with me about Doc Savage, a character I do not like and cannot bring myself to like, can testify. I get why this happens, even if I understand why it’s shitty. Ultimately, the best “deconstructions” or reinterpretations will always come from people who are best familiar with the material they are using and know exactly the best ways to twist it, like with Mark Waid’s Irredeemable, an Evil Superman comic written by a huge Superman fan who knows exactly the absolute worst ways a Superman character can go sour, and was leagues ahead of works like The Boys and Brightburn who largely just take the “easy” pot shots.

With Lord Hawthorne, we get a character who’s an evil take on Tarzan, but whose evilness isn’t made from exaggerating or adding faults to the source material character, which could very easily be done. I never got the sense that the author hates Tarzan and wants everyone to hate Tarzan and is willingly to sacrifice immersion just to get across how much he hates Tarzan (again, something LOEG does way too often), in fact it really doesn’t matter how the author feels about Tarzan, because those feelings are irrevelant to what’s on the page.

Instead, Lord Hawthorne is an evil take on Tarzan whose characterization is largely based on just looking at the source material, the character’s origins, and extrapolating the circumstances in which that could go sour. What would a “wild man” forced to grow up and fight for survival every day in the jungle look like, what would that person look like when making it’s first contact with human affection, how could that person be twisted and manipulated into becoming a villain, what’s even left to that person outside of violent action scenes. How little it would take to twist a childhood hero into a brute that murders old women in their hospital beds, just by tweaking a few details about the context surrounding him.

He is not a caricature of Tarzan, he’s not a parody, he is just Tarzan, but no longer the power fantasy. No longer the center of fantastical adventures. No longer getting the best of both worlds, but instead having to contend with the worst of them. Ultimately only finding some dignity in death, with his nemesis expressing hope that, maybe somewhere else, he’s going to have better luck than what this world afforded him.

#lavender jack #pulp heroes #comics tag #lord hawthorne #dan schkade #far from my favorite thing about this comic but #that in itself should be a testament to just how amazing lavender jack is #please go read it

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shinneth · 5 years

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Gem Ascension Tropes (Peridot-specific: R)

Reference:

Primary Peri Post ▼ Primary General Post ▼ Full Article

Rage Breaking Point: A couple of key moments in Act III qualify. The first is Peridot being triggered in Chapter 6 by seeing (the presumed) White Diamond’s neck and immediately thinks of the nature of her own Tricked to Death scenario which has permanently messed with her life in ways she still can’t comprehend. She holds back for a while, but the moment she doesn’t have to escort any teammates, she goes completely Ax-Crazy with an obsession of slicing open White Diamond’s neck. Fast-forward a couple of chapters where Pumpkin is killed, and Peridot completely loses it. She’s invoking destruction of a much larger scale this time, as it ends up not only compromising an already-dying Homeworld, but tears its own atmosphere to shreds.

Rape Leads to Insanity: It nearly did. While Peridot managed to overcome her own instinctive urges to just accept, embrace, and enjoy being regularly subjected to this by the higher-caste gems, she couldn’t completely shut down her body’s urges that were awakened by her Near-Rape Experience with Jasper. She opted to deal with that herself, though Peridot couldn’t get Jasper out of her mind no matter how hard she tried at the time. The experience also all but completely shattered her identity as The Sociopath with far more ambition than a Peridot should ever have. She also no longer resisted pain as well as she once did, which was what Peridot was originally lauded for in the first place.

Rapid-Fire “No!”: Peridot’s panicking devolves into this when she learns from White Diamond that she emerged with a shard from Yellow Diamond embedded in her gemstone, making her a peridot-diamond hybrid.

Razor Wind: What is primarily conjured from Peridot’s Heroic BSoD-charged Angst Nuke, due in part to her Death Wail that Peridot constantly screams out.

Really 17 Years Old: Played with. Peridot refuses to tell anyone her age, as she’s going out of her way to fit in with the rest of her fellow gems who are Really 5,000+ Years Old (and often exceed that a great amount). Being the only Era 2 gem, however, makes it obvious that she can’t possibly be over 5,000 years old, and most of the Crystal Gems don’t think Peridot even breaks 1,000. The gems closer to her, like Amethyst, don’t believe she’s even in the 100s.

Amethyst ends up being correct, tying with Greg on the betting pool regarding Peridot’s age that she does reveal in Act II’s chapter (but only to Garnet via her Video Will). It turns out Peridot is really 13, making her younger than Steven.

Rebellious Spirit: Per canon, she gained this after her first Heel-Face Turn long before GA started. By the time GA starts, this is yet another Up to Eleven trait Peridot has, and largely what fuels her power as a Determinator. More prominent in Act III since she is an authority figure throughout Act I and isn’t present in Act II. But when she’s with White Diamond… played oh-so straight.

Recruited from the Gutter: Per canon, Peridot was basically Left for Dead after failing her mission and was lost and alone on Earth until that fateful day when she got desperate and resorted to kidnapping Steven straight out of his bed… although in GA, while this is referenced a lot, there’s more emphasis on Peridot’s identity, and how Steven saw signs of it even before she was captured by the Crystal Gems, which was what compelled him to free her from the Burning Room in the first place.

Red Oni, Blue Oni: Red to Lapis’, Steven’s, and 5XF’s Blue.

Reformed Bully: As a working-class gem on Homeworld, Peridot bordered on Complete Monster territory towards her fellow kin. Then she met Jasper, Jasper Broke the Haughty, which greatly softened Peridot up (though it didn’t reform her) shortly before she directly confronted the Crystal Gems. Once she was stranded on Earth and taken in by the Crystal Gems, she Took a Level in Kindness and became virtually the opposite of who she once was. Once Peridot regained her memories of the full extent of her cruelty in her past life in Chapter 4 of Act I, she’s even more driven to separate herself from who she once was… although she still constantly lives with the guilt of her past actions.

Repressed Memories: Following Peridot’s canon Heel-Face Turn, she did this for most memories of her Homeworld life. Some memories were just pointless to keep fresh in her mind (especially when Peridot was under the impression that she would never return to Homeworld again), but others were done subconsciously so that Peridot could better live with herself and focus on actually becoming a better person rather than dwelling on what a Manipulative Bastard she was for most of her life. The several new, more positive memories she made on Earth made this a fairly easy process. However, most of her Homeworld memories were easily regained when Peridot did return to her planet of origin. One memory stands out as being far more repressed than all others, as not even that stimulation would bring it out; it was so well-buried that it took a direct confrontation from Steven to come forward. Peridot’s first meeting with Jasper when she was assigned as her escort was traumatic enough to nearly shatter her entire identity; the only reason it wasn’t completely buried was due to the role Lapis played in it, as said memory reveals the real reason why Peridot was so lenient with and subservient to her once they became roommates, and why she wouldn’t let herself hate Lapis after being abandoned by her.

Required Secondary Powers: Not powers, per se, but in order to be able to will something to happen or for something to exist, Peridot (and Chartreuse) needs to know what it is and mentally visualize it. This is Who I Am best represents this, as while Peridot is capable of teleportation, she needs to have an idea of where her destination is and visualize it. Before teleporting her group to Egypt, Steven shows coordinates and pictures to Peridot so she can accurately and precisely teleport herself and others to said destination. If she just learns the name of an obscure location without any additional information, she won’t be able to teleport there, as she has no concept of what direction to even go – let alone having a clue what her destination looks like.

Restrained Revenge: An inadvertent example resulting from White Diamond’s attempted attack In the Back being countered by Peridot’s Backstab Backfire… which Peridot at first halts at the last second before the attack hits White out of respect for Steven… then, upon seeing White’s utter fear of her, realizes this is far more satisfying than just killing White off. A Diamond fearing the lowest gem in the caste system is a memory and a visual Peridot will treasure forever, and goes a long way in tempering her (justified) rage over the fact that White killed Pumpkin. Ironically enough, this moment is what causes White to self-destruct shortly afterwards, as she’s too ashamed to live it down.

Revenge Before Reason: Becomes a bit of a Hypocrite in Chapter 4 of Act I when it’s revealed her plot to poof Yellow Pearl and use her gemstone as a Skeleton Key doubled as a means for Peridot to get back at some of the gems who made life miserable for her. This is just a couple of chapters after Peridot berates her teammates for even considering doing anything on Homeworld not related to their mission, especially personal revenge. Bismuth and Lapis don’t hesitate to call her out on this, though at this point, Peridot finally succumbs to a nervous breakdown that had been building up all chapter since suffering 9FC’s No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. She’s too far gone to be reasoned with right away, and passes out soon afterwards.

Romance-Inducing Smudge: Sort of. In Chapter 5 of Act I, the first thing Steven heals is a bruised scar on Peridot’s face that she sustained during the one-sided No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. Peridot’s not actually aware she has this injury (the three crippled limbs are a bit more attention-grabbing), so she’s first disgusted when Steven smears a slimy thumb coated with his Super Spit across her face… only to abruptly stop complaining once the pain in her face fades away. Then Peridot is fascinated with her Love Interest’s healing abilities.

Romantic Hyberbole: Peridot actually thinks no hyperbole exists that could accurately measure how much she loves Steven. She constantly credits her entire identity to him, which extends to her life. Peridot means every word of what she says to Steven, and the bizarre part is that she’s not exactly wrong about a lot of it…

Peridot: “Oh, Steven. I’d say I love you, but that doesn’t even come close to accurately describing just how intense that sentiment is. Even if I said it nonstop all day long, it wouldn’t even reflect 1% of how much I mean that.”

Rudely Hanging Up: Peridot does this to White Diamond three times in Chapter 6 of Act III.

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