[UA] Avatars and Godwalkers

[Stuart Anderson]

Royal Minister of Stuff wrote:

> As a result, the unshaven guy on the motorcycle or the
> rumpled cop or, god forgive me for mentioning this,
> any character played by Joe Don Baker, became, well,
> less Real.

    Joe Don Baker was the last ugly tough guy. He was the one
guy I could look at in the movies who was uglier than me.
When Lauren Hutton seduced him in the movies, I watched and
thought--that could happen to me! Joe Don *does* seem less
real, and that's a damning indigtment of the whole
archetypal, role-model, self-definition system of human
development in general.
    As a tangent, my pop and I met Buford Pusser (JDB's
signature role was plying him in the exploitation bio-flick)
not long before he died. He'd been extremely messed up, and
he was in an elaborate cast that went up past his chin. How
he was still moving around--I don't know, man. He really was
a MM, as far as I can tell.

> So that begs the question: there has to be ANOTHER
> contender for masterless man.

    I like the hippie renegade lawyer or journalist for this
one. They're certainly their own kind of stereotype, but
Thompson and Lazlo screaming across the desert seem right to
me. Their guns and swords are metaphorical, I suppose, but
even so. I don't know how many of you have sports figures in
your games, but it fits that mentality as well. In SRA, we
had a demolition derby driver who was channeling MM. Everyone
else thought maybe he was an entropomancer. I know the avatar
is really about combat, but since there tends to be no
shortage of combat for anyone in my scenarios, I casually
disregarded the focus on combat-oriented professionals, and
expanded it to confrontational professionals. Kolchak would
be another relentless, abuse-taking reporter. Dave
Robichaux--James Lee Burke's Louisiana ex-cop PI--is a good
representative of another MM stereotype. Wouldn't you shit if
Ralph Nader turned out to be channeling the MM? You wonder
how he's stayed alive so long with so many major corporations
after him? They send their boys and he hands their asses back
to them, that's how! I think there's a lot you could do.
    But I come from the other end of the spectrum from a
couple of recent posters. I like the very broad
interpretations of the archetypes. If you want to keep the
types specific, you should stick with Pusser or Serpico or
Stone Cold Steve Austin, or other rebellious warriors.
--Stu


_______________________________________________
UA mailing list
UA at lists.uchicago.edu
http://lists.uchicago.edu/mailman/listinfo/ua