Just another rando on the internet

There is beauty in chaos

THE INSPIRATION: The Random

“There is a certain fate to the universe, and a certain randomness.”

—Harlen Coben

If you had asked me where I might live someday, I don’t think Colorado would have ever made it on the list. I had never been to Colorado, except for maybe a layover. I might have gone to a writing conference in Denver once? But honestly, writing conferences are all held in the exact same hotel, and when I was at writers conferences, I never went anywhere aside from the bar.

But here I am, living in Colorado as the result of a random happenstance—falling in love with a dude from Colorado. It’s lovely, and I’m really enjoying it, but it never would have happened without the power of the random event.

Life is a series of random events. We can plan what we can plan, but mostly… we’re surfing the waves of destiny, or random chaos.

All depends on how you look at it.

THE FAT ORANGE CAT: Pick a number, any number

In your work today, I want you to look around you and pick three things. Can you see a tree outside your window? Maybe that’s a thing. Your old yearbook. Maybe a cat toy under the desk. Whatever. Pick three things and then find a random number generator on the internet, and have it choose between one and three.

Then weave that element into your work today.

THE TROPE: Hands-Free Handlamp

For today’s trope, I went to TVTropes and hit their “random trope” button and it gave me Hands-Free Handlamp, which refers to video games in which the main character’s area of focus is somehow always illuminated, even though we may not have a textual light source present.

Which of course makes sense; if the player can’t see what they’re doing, the game is failing to utilize one of its big strengths—the visual medium. But when you think about it, all storytelling is about illuminating what the protagonist can perceive.

I don’t know. Trying to make something out of this, but I’m not sure there’s much of anything deeper there. That’s the beauty of the random. Sometimes, it’s great. And sometimes… it’s just random.

THE QUESTION:

“I think (I really hope) it was you who made the distinction that Breaking Bad is not a story about a good man gone bad, but rather a story about ... and then I can't remember. Can you refresh my memory, and also share any other examples of that kind of story??

I'm taking a class on fairy tale heroines with the awesome Drs. Sara and Brittany of the Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic. One of our texts is the Tamsyn Muir book, Princess Floralinda and the Forty-flight Tower. In it—spoiler alert—traditional princess-type winds up becoming a kind of monster as she is forced to rescue herself by doing grueling and gory battle with a series of monsters trapping her in the tower. (The princes who came just weren't up to the task.) I wanted to share your thoughts on "Breaking Bad" because it seemed like a sort of similar scenario. (Floralinda, it turns out, kind of likes killing things after a while.)”

—Jamie

Dear Jamie,

First of all, that class sounds amazing! Second, I’m sorry for the delay in my response. If you’re still in the class and want my answer, here it is.

A warning for anyone who hasn’t seen the show; here be spoilers. I would definitely give it a watch, though, if you haven’t seen it. I don’t care for violence and I’m way tired of “bad guy with a soul” narratives (see The Sopranos, Mad Men) but this one has enough story value that if that’s your jam, it’s worth it.

I have often said that Breaking Bad isn’t a story about a good man gone bad, but a weak man succumbing to temptation. I will also say that I first heard this in conversation with someone who gave me that original insight—that Walter White is not a good man, but a weak man—and I want to say it was Dr. Kelly Jones who first said that to me, but I honestly can’t remember. Anyway, as soon as that person said it, I agreed wholeheartedly, and it made Breaking Bad even more interesting for me.

Walter is a weak person. He isn’t “good” because he actively chooses good; he just passively chooses whatever is easiest. When he’s diagnosed with cancer and doesn’t have any money to leave for his family, he doesn’t resist “breaking bad” because it’s the Wrong Thing To Do. He goes for it because he has nothing left to lose; his family, who will possess the ill-gotten gains after Walter’s death, may have to pay the price for that, but he doesn’t really worry about that. Then, once he starts making the drugs, he becomes a shadow self, and he likes it. For the first time in his life, he’s genuinely good at something, and it’s intoxicating. He likes the money, he likes the power, he likes being the One Who Knocks.

At no point does Walter really wrestle with whether what he’s doing is good or bad, only with whether he’ll get caught or not. He’s not a good man gone bad; he’s a weak man doing what he damn well pleases because he can.

Without having read Muir’s book—an oversight I’m about to remedy—I would say that you might have something similar here. The cues are in who she is before the opportunity to kill, and who she is after. If she is killing monsters and just likes it, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, because she’s doing something that’s for the ultimate good and protection of others. But if she kills something that is not a danger to others and enjoys it and doesn’t struggle with whether it’s right or wrong, she might be closer to Walter White.

Thanks so much! Great question!

THE PRACTICAL: Why I love The Mindy Project

Anyone who knows me knows what a huge fan I am of The Office, so when Mindy Kaling (who played Kelly Kapoor on the show, and was a writer who penned some of my favorite episodes) went off to create her own show, I followed. The Mindy Project centered on Mindy Lahiri, a NYC gynecologist with a penchant for the ridiculous, had a lot of things I don’t typically enjoy. There is frequent humiliation of the female protagonist; some characters (like Nurse Morgan Tookers) are joke vending machines, which precludes any possibility for connection; and the main romance doesn’t resolve in an emotionally satisfying way.

But still, I watch the whole thing through about once a year because I love it, despite the things about it that would ordinarily repel me.

I don’t mind Mindy being the butt of the joke, which is something I have really disliked in stories like Two Weeks’ Notice and Bridesmaids, because we are always in her perspective, which comes from a place of strength. The character of Mindy Lahiri (distinct from Mindy Kaling) is confident and strong and has a healthy sense of self, and the humiliating scenarios usually end with a focus on her positive qualities. They also have an inside-out quality to them, where Mindy is laughing at herself, rather than others laughing at her. She also comes from a place of power; this is her story, from her perspective, she’s a successful professional woman with a lot of privilege and she is aware of that privilege. Something about that particular cocktail makes a character I ordinarily wouldn’t enjoy an absolute delight for me.

I will never like the nurse characters, all of which are joke vending machines and which, as I write this, could be solid textual arguments for classism in the show, especially considering that a couple of the nurse characters just disappear without so much as a goodbye as others are slid in their place as though the pieces were interchangeable. That said, while I’m not a fan of the writing for those characters, I really enjoy the performances from the actors, who do a lot with something that gave them very little.

The romance with Dr. Danny Castellano, played by Chris Messina, is a lot of fun at first, but it goes off the rails and then back on and off again, and while Messina lends a great deal of charm and emotional weight to the character, he’s just such an asshole that I find it hard to get past after a while. But man, when Mindy brings the emotional pain in this story, she brings it. For someone who is so funny, Kaling has the ability to play a deeply affecting emotional moment in a way that is so raw and vulnerable and real that I deeply want her to start writing and starring in romantic comedies. She wrote and starred in Late Night with Emma Thompson, which was charming, but she’s been mostly doing television work.

Anyway, even with its flaws, I heartily recommend The Mindy Project if you’re looking for something light and fun and surprisingly emotionally affecting from time to time. It hit just the spot for me during these last few weeks of unpacking and settling in. Kaling is the most reliable person to make me laugh at things I’ve seen a thousand times.