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Looking back at my Hellraiser fic.
Feb. 13th, 2019 09:55 pmI have a lot of unfinished fics.
Like most of the ones that weren't two-page character studies, for the most part.
Like, most of them. And lately, I've been going back and looking at some of the longer ones which were more popular back in the day, and thinking about how I would fix them/finish them.
But in the case of my Hellraiser fic, I am glad I waited. Because I really wasn't mature enough to see the through-story/ultimate theme of the Hellraiser franchise in general: people wanting things, truly striving for things, often fighting and even killing for things that are bad and self-destructive, often with fallout that spills over onto their loved ones.
Kirsty starts out as a victim of generational family dysfunction, which informs her actions in later films. Depending on whether you take what happens in Hellraiser 6 at face value, she is a murderer by the end of her character arc, tossing Pinhead fresh victims in lieu of her own soul. The comics do take the events as depicted in Hellraiser 6 at face value; but actress Ashley Laurence maintains that "it was all a dream," implying that Trevor is an unreliable narrator (something we knew anyway) and his version of events is not in fact what actually happens. Either way, her fate is ultimately intertwined with that of Pinhead and the Box, and the fact that she may be on a Slow Boat To Cenobitism has long been accepted as a given by fans.
When I first saw the first two films in 1996, I perceived her arc with Pinhead as a Gothic romance (think Twilight or 50 Shades Of Gray) which had been aborted and put on hold by every single film since Hellraiser II. I was legit mad for years that the films never went back and revisited their connection or concluded their story arc, with them able to engage in some kind of romantic relationship despite their circumstances. This is very much how my fanfic would have ended up if I had finished it with the ending I'd foreseen for it in my head in 2007-2009. This is not in keeping with either character. And it took The Scarlet Gospels and The Toll to make me see that.
On paper, Clive Barker writes Pinhead as a preening, vicious, opportunistic malignant narcissist - a grasping, ambitious minor functionary with no redeeming qualities, who is even reprimanded or called out by the actual rulers of Hell on more than one occasion for putting himself too far forward. By contrast, Doug Bradley's film performances from the first film onward projected a charismatic, sardonic character with an amazing presence, hinting at hidden depths - and this is what we as Hellraiser fans all fell in love with. It's probably how Book!Pinhead erroneously sees himself. It's not the Pinhead that we see in any of the novels as he actually appears.
Doug Atkins, a longtime friend and associate of Clive Barker, wrote the sequel to Clive Barker's original Hellraiser film, Hellraiser II: Hellbound (which is widely regarded as the best film in the franchise) that made it very clear that the "Hell" the Cenobites are from is not the Hell of the Bible, but another dimension ruled over by an entity called the Leviathan.
This is the version that also made it into the comics, and it was fascinating to me because it proposed the idea that our mythologies and religious doctrines may not even be close the truth of what is actually going on out there in the Multiverse. And whatever led Captain Spenser (Spencer?) to the Box and his ultimate fate as Pinhead, it suggested that there was a core of goodness within Pinhead that could still be redeemed.
But in Clive Barker's later book The Scarlet Gospels and Mark Alan Miller's spinoff The Toll, it's very clear that "Hell" is the actual Biblical Hell, with the actual Biblical Satan. And the idea that Pinhead (or Captain Spens(c)er) has any redeeming qualities whatsoever goes right out the proverbial window.
My main dilemma now is the fact that no matter how hard I try, I can't reconcile film!Pinhead with the character as he appears in the later books by Clive Barker and Mark Alan Miller. They might as well be two separate entities entirely - except in Hellraiser IV, which Clive had a direct hand in, and his intended characterization of Pinhead shines through Doug Bradley's performance.
And even if I were to find some way to reconcile the two different versions of the character and his world - in the end, he still has to rend Kirsty's flesh and tear her soul apart. She'd be yearning for someone whose end goal is to tear her soul apart...continuing the cycle of people striving for things, or people, who hurt and destroy them, and not really caring what or who gets in their way. Like Frank, like Julia. Like Dr. Channard. Like John Merchant, before he realized what he'd done. Like Trevor. Like Winter Merchant.
The Pinhead in the books couldn't possibly feel what I had imagined that film!Pinhead felt for Kirsty, even suppressed or sublimated through decades of Cenobitic torture and brainwashing. He certainly wouldn't have risked his life for her the way he did in Hellraiser II. And that was the side of Pinhead I always wanted to see again. Book!Pinhead might try to feign some feelings of connection for her, turning it into a manipulative mindgame, perhaps enjoying the drama of it all - only for his true colors to shine through once she thwarted or spurned him, which would be an inevitability. And no one wants to see Kirsty wind up with another preening malignant narcissist gaslighter after Trevor.
But now that I finally get what the actual through-story of it is, I can write an ending that works.
Current Mood:
Like most of the ones that weren't two-page character studies, for the most part.
Like, most of them. And lately, I've been going back and looking at some of the longer ones which were more popular back in the day, and thinking about how I would fix them/finish them.
But in the case of my Hellraiser fic, I am glad I waited. Because I really wasn't mature enough to see the through-story/ultimate theme of the Hellraiser franchise in general: people wanting things, truly striving for things, often fighting and even killing for things that are bad and self-destructive, often with fallout that spills over onto their loved ones.
Kirsty starts out as a victim of generational family dysfunction, which informs her actions in later films. Depending on whether you take what happens in Hellraiser 6 at face value, she is a murderer by the end of her character arc, tossing Pinhead fresh victims in lieu of her own soul. The comics do take the events as depicted in Hellraiser 6 at face value; but actress Ashley Laurence maintains that "it was all a dream," implying that Trevor is an unreliable narrator (something we knew anyway) and his version of events is not in fact what actually happens. Either way, her fate is ultimately intertwined with that of Pinhead and the Box, and the fact that she may be on a Slow Boat To Cenobitism has long been accepted as a given by fans.
When I first saw the first two films in 1996, I perceived her arc with Pinhead as a Gothic romance (think Twilight or 50 Shades Of Gray) which had been aborted and put on hold by every single film since Hellraiser II. I was legit mad for years that the films never went back and revisited their connection or concluded their story arc, with them able to engage in some kind of romantic relationship despite their circumstances. This is very much how my fanfic would have ended up if I had finished it with the ending I'd foreseen for it in my head in 2007-2009. This is not in keeping with either character. And it took The Scarlet Gospels and The Toll to make me see that.
On paper, Clive Barker writes Pinhead as a preening, vicious, opportunistic malignant narcissist - a grasping, ambitious minor functionary with no redeeming qualities, who is even reprimanded or called out by the actual rulers of Hell on more than one occasion for putting himself too far forward. By contrast, Doug Bradley's film performances from the first film onward projected a charismatic, sardonic character with an amazing presence, hinting at hidden depths - and this is what we as Hellraiser fans all fell in love with. It's probably how Book!Pinhead erroneously sees himself. It's not the Pinhead that we see in any of the novels as he actually appears.
Doug Atkins, a longtime friend and associate of Clive Barker, wrote the sequel to Clive Barker's original Hellraiser film, Hellraiser II: Hellbound (which is widely regarded as the best film in the franchise) that made it very clear that the "Hell" the Cenobites are from is not the Hell of the Bible, but another dimension ruled over by an entity called the Leviathan.
This is the version that also made it into the comics, and it was fascinating to me because it proposed the idea that our mythologies and religious doctrines may not even be close the truth of what is actually going on out there in the Multiverse. And whatever led Captain Spenser (Spencer?) to the Box and his ultimate fate as Pinhead, it suggested that there was a core of goodness within Pinhead that could still be redeemed.
But in Clive Barker's later book The Scarlet Gospels and Mark Alan Miller's spinoff The Toll, it's very clear that "Hell" is the actual Biblical Hell, with the actual Biblical Satan. And the idea that Pinhead (or Captain Spens(c)er) has any redeeming qualities whatsoever goes right out the proverbial window.
My main dilemma now is the fact that no matter how hard I try, I can't reconcile film!Pinhead with the character as he appears in the later books by Clive Barker and Mark Alan Miller. They might as well be two separate entities entirely - except in Hellraiser IV, which Clive had a direct hand in, and his intended characterization of Pinhead shines through Doug Bradley's performance.
And even if I were to find some way to reconcile the two different versions of the character and his world - in the end, he still has to rend Kirsty's flesh and tear her soul apart. She'd be yearning for someone whose end goal is to tear her soul apart...continuing the cycle of people striving for things, or people, who hurt and destroy them, and not really caring what or who gets in their way. Like Frank, like Julia. Like Dr. Channard. Like John Merchant, before he realized what he'd done. Like Trevor. Like Winter Merchant.
The Pinhead in the books couldn't possibly feel what I had imagined that film!Pinhead felt for Kirsty, even suppressed or sublimated through decades of Cenobitic torture and brainwashing. He certainly wouldn't have risked his life for her the way he did in Hellraiser II. And that was the side of Pinhead I always wanted to see again. Book!Pinhead might try to feign some feelings of connection for her, turning it into a manipulative mindgame, perhaps enjoying the drama of it all - only for his true colors to shine through once she thwarted or spurned him, which would be an inevitability. And no one wants to see Kirsty wind up with another preening malignant narcissist gaslighter after Trevor.
But now that I finally get what the actual through-story of it is, I can write an ending that works.
Current Mood:
