Lommel's March to the Sea

First, the genteel application for the Evil League of Evil by the Gentleman Caller:



Which somehow leads to this strange polar transmission/powerpoint presentation:



Bad Horse would be making a huge mistake by galloping past the Lommel.

Dr. Horrible Returns

Hulu got AT&T to sponsor Dr. Horrible, so the entire show is available once again online:



...but, for how long?

Dr. Horrible, Billy Buddy and Melville

Dr. Horrible's secret identity (typically thought of as superheroes and supervillains' "real" or "normal" selves) is Billy, whom Penny affectionately refers to as "Billy Buddy."

The name is far too similar to Herman Melville's famous title character of the unfinished and long-lost novella, Billy Budd. Budd is the nearly angelic "pure good" character who is executed by the good, just, yet ultimately legalistic and cowardly Captain Vere for the crime of murder. The so-called victim of the murder is the nearly demonic Claggart. Budd accepts his fate, even to the point of calling on God to bless his executioner.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog seems to reverse the roles a little, but stays true to the themes, of Billy Budd. Billy Buddy is likeable, sweet and endearing, but he's the one with a seemingly friendly and justified demon inside (with jerks like Captain Hammer running around, isn't he allowed a little vitriol?). Captain Hammer slides almost directly into the Captain Vere role - the law-abiding, by the book, good guy who nonetheless can't transcend the letter of the law to the spirit of it: in other words, he's good and just, but also legalistic and uncaring for those whom he defends. So, in Joss Whedon's version of Melville, Billy Buddy is the one becoming an agent for the Thoroughbred of Sin, while Penny is the pure good in the Billy Budd role who is nonetheless an innocent catalyst for disaster.

Dr. Horrible and the Thoroughbred of Sin

Not that anyone reads these (fortunately, for the sanity and well-being of the civilized world) but just in case:

SPOILERS ahem SPOILERS WITH A CAPITAL "s" SPOILERS to follow.






Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is, well, relatively self-explanatory. It is a video blog that you can sing along with about a would-be supervillian named Dr. Horrible.

I've seen it, you've seen it, we've all seen it. But what's it all about?

In the first two acts, in true post-modern fashion, the show establishes sympathy for the lead character, Dr. Horrible (played by Neil Patrick Harris). This works because it plays off the well-worn anti-hero motiff. The anti-hero argument is basically this: traditional heroes are actually symbolic of the shiny veneer on the oppressive Social System, and the real hero is the flawed, unsuper fellow who can see through that facade, and fight against it.

In other words, Superman is a facsistic wish-fulfillment, a literal and figurative extension of the eugenics of the spiritual Third Reich. Batman is a sick sociopath, haunted by his impotence and forever dependent on criminality in order to give himself identity. Captain America is nothing more than a government tool. The Hulk is displaced rage with daddy issues.*

What about the poor, misunderstood supervillain? Doesn't he have motive? Doesn't he have good cause for what he does? Shouldn't his dreams matter?

Such is the case with Dr. Horrible. In act I, we quickly understand that Dr. Horrible is a puffed up, mostly harmless, social basket case. By the end of act II, we root for his cartoonish revenge fantasy, because we believe him to be wronged. By the end of act III, his dreams have simultaneously gone awry and come true, and we abruptly realize the depths of isolation that his success has brought him.

Dr. Horrible is, literally, all fun and games until someone loses a life. And it all started so innocently. Dr. Horrible, the incompetent, yet likable, blowhard confesses his love and ambition, and the viewers are inspired to take up his cause. Here's a guy who wants to be validated by membership in an exclusive club (the ridiculous-sounding Evil League of Evil) and get the girl of his dreams, Penny (Felicia Day). The absolutely goofy plot that develops dares the audience to take it lightly, and to vicariously hope for Dr. Horrible's too-perfect traditional hero foil (and jerk-of-all-trades), Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion), to take one on his well-chiseled chin.

And, in Act III, he does. Dr. Horrible, in taking extreme measures by developing a lethal weapon (something that he found, in his saner moments to be unstylish), gets everything: Hammer is humiliated, people fear/respect Dr. Horrible and, by unintentionally killing Penny, he earns even the respect of Bad Horse, the Thoroghbred of Sin and head of the Evil League of Evil. At that point, when Dr. Horrible could come face-to-face with the consequence of his once-silly rage and once-overreaching ambition, he instead, reluctantly accepts the fruit of his sin, entering the League, reaping the fickle public's acclaim, and starting his quest in earnest to rule the planet. The audience, on the other hand, is left with broken hearts for a now incapacitated, weeping Captain Hammer and a dead Penny.

The last, brief image is that of Dr. Horrible, stripped of all artifice, staring blankly into the camera, feeling nothing.

This wasn't what many expected from something with the phrase "Sing-Along" in the title. But it is, in fact, the perfect title. The show says a great deal about what people have come to expect from their entertainment. It is alluring to live vicariously through the comic actions of bad characters. It is a standard trope that the traditional hero is, by definition, now considered to be, at best, a heavily compromised self-deception, and at worst, a greater problem than whatever evil faces us.

Dr. Horrible takes a lighthearted approach to temptation and sin, gives motive to wrath, revenge and power fantasies, and then pulls the curtain back to reveal what we all know inside: there are many ways to sugarcoat evil - downplay it, lampoon it, sympathize with it, explain it away, or laugh it up - but it is real, it is creeping, and it ultimately leaves us empty as a tomb.

And that is the story's genius. It succeeds as a laugh-out-loud comedy that leads us to the sobering conclusion that sin is nothing to joke about.

The shocking, tragic lesson of Dr. Horrible is that there is a deeply likable face of Wrong.

*It's not just comic books: the antihero-worship is an alternative for those who accept the musical accusation that "John Wayne was a Nazi" or the notion that subsistence is preferred to the risk of heroism.

Sin: Not Even Wrong

Peter Woit has written many very humbling critiques of string theory, perhaps most famously in his book Not Even Wrong.

Woit, a Ph.D. in theoretical physics and a lecturer in mathematics at Columbia, posits this basic argument: string theory, which has seen a quarter-century of near-dominance in physics departments in higher education, doesn't meet the basic criteria to be classified as a theory (thus, "not even wrong.")

I won't say any more about his argument or whether I, as just a dumb non-physics-nobody-troglodyte, agree with him or not* but what I do love is his turn of phrase. "Not even wrong" is a notion that casts a wide net, in which a person can snare all sort of empty cultural habits that we elevate to godhood.

Idols have always been "not even wrong." They signify only what the observer casts upon them, carry no intrinsic meaning, and promise everything while delivering nothing, and then telling us how satisfied we are. The garments in The Emperor's New Clothes are "not even wrong." The 30 minutes of "national evening news" are "not even wrong."

And something I've come to realize recently: breaking any of the Ten Commandments is, in a sense "not even wrong." What I mean is that there is a lot of literature and film and even philosophy that claims that, while breaking the Ten Commandments (i.e. committing any transgression) is "wrong," it is also "fun" or in some other way fulfilling. The "fun" or "advantage" is why we break any given commandment.

But I don't think that's right, at least, not most of the time. There's a nihilistic part of our nature that is "not even wrong." When a man commits murder, is he fulfilled by what it gains him? Does the money or catharsis or pride he gains move any part of his being closer to joy or laughter or even social advantage? Is there God's pleasure in it? Is it ever really "fun" to reap the whirlwind?

When you covet, does that coveting slake your thirst? Does it grant a joy alternate, a substitute for ownership? When we dishonor our parents, do we gain honor for ourselves?

Sin is "not even wrong." It is the absence of right. It is a choice to deprive oneself of the fellowship of God. It isn't a bad means to a good end. It is a bad means to an empty gesture.**

*I do agree with him. Completely and undoubtedly. Both feet stomping down from the heavens into his camp agree. But I didn't tell you. Because I'm objective.

**C.S. Lewis said it better when he said "Badness is only spoiled goodness."

Remember Ba'al of Peor

I remember the Alamo. I remember the Maine. I remember Pearl Harbor. I remember September 11.

But what about when the national injustice comes about by our hand? Until my most recent reading of the Old Testament, I wouldn't have been able to recall the Ba'al Peor heresy. And though it was commited by a nation not my own, it was commited by a people to whom I owe a great deal for my instruction in faith.

Ba'al of Peor was a bad thing, a memorable thing, a thing decried from the time of Moses to the time of Hosea (i.e. a really long time), an example of Israel's tendency in specific (and man's historic trend in general) to launch sneak attacks against God. Our lips praise him, but our hearts wander into darkness, until the moment of assault, of treason, of adultery.

We commit injustices against our Lord. We remember the Alamo, the Maine, and Pearl Harbor, but can never seem to recall Ba'al of Peor.