[UA] Thoughts on the Freak and Dirk Allen

[Rich Ranallo]

A friend and I were discussing The Freak this weekend, trying to come up 
with a good story to explain why exactly it wants Dirk Allen dead.  Based 
on the little bits of information in the book, here's what we came out with 
(all in theory, of course):

Gaining the ability to switch genders at will requires a major charge for 
an Epideromancer.  Thus, The Freak must have some disfigurement that can 
never be covered up with its Epideromancy.  Since it's never described as 
having a missing limb or extremity, it probably got that charge by drinking 
acid, which explains its weak, raspy voice.

The price The Freak would require in order to forgive Dirk Allen is 
"immortality."  To an avatar, this is likely to be synonymous with 
"ascension."  So, whatever it is that Dirk Allen did, it prevented The 
Freak from ascending.  Assuming that a candidate for ascension as the 
Mystic Hermaphrodite has to be an actual, physical hermaphrodite at the 
very least (and thus, must possess both male and female anatomies), this 
might mean that Allen forced The Freak into a position where it had to 
generate a major charge by castrating itself.  Like drinking acid, 
castration is a permanent disfigurement that allows it to look whole, at 
least while it's clothed.  So, maintaining outward appearances is (or, at 
least was) important to The Freak.  Obviously, the circumstances must have 
been dire in order to force The Freak to eliminate its own shot at 
ascension, so I can only assume that it would die otherwise.

The concept of the Mystic Hermaphrodite started as the idea of perfection, 
the alchemical ideal of a being that embodies everything in the human 
experience.  However, since that time, the overall view of the 
hermaphrodite has become the polar opposite; as a physical condition, 
hermaphroditism (I'm not sure that's a word) is seen as a flaw, and a 
pretty major one at that.  For several hundred years, the hermaphrodite has 
meant confusion and corruption, rather than wisdom and purity.  This is 
probably the path The Freak was taking to the top, and with the weight of 
humanity reinforcing such a view, ascension probably would've been easy to 
accomplish (OK, relatively easy).  Now, with The Freak as a Godwalker who 
can't ever fully ascend, the only thing it can hope to accomplish is to 
kill off anyone who gets too close.  This plan works well for the current 
Mystic Hermaphrodite archetype, since no one can challenge its position if 
they get gutted by a mad Godwalker first.  So there's an unspoken truce 
between the two, with The Freak serving as an Earthbound hatchetman for the 
archetype.

Considering that The Freak values its ability to look like anyone at any 
time, and that it symbolizes confusion, duplicity and corruption, I get a 
very "Cold War" vibe.  My guess is that it once was a spy, most likely a 
double (or triple, or quadruple) agent, likely dating back to the 1930s or 
40s (I'd like to think that it was once a German cabaret singer).  That 
would make it quite old, but Epideromancy could take care of that.  It rode 
the wave of paranoia and doubt that infected the entire world from the end 
of World War Two until the fall of the USSR.  It had a hand in all the 
dirty deals of the past sixty years, using its abilities to feed flames 
across the globe, corrupting nations, corporations and ideals, then 
exposing them to the public.  It impersonated J. Edgar Hoover in the 
now-infamous transvestite photos.  Its Deep, Throaty voice exposed the 
Watergate break-in.  Maybe it even helped to scatter Reagan's mind in his 
second term.

Of course, with modern attitudes about sexuality, The Freak's path isn't as 
strong as it once was.  Acceptance of transgenderism, bisexuality and 
transvestitism is starting to swing the mass mind back toward the original 
concept of the Mystic Hermaphrodite,  so the current archetype has a bit 
more breathing room, and might choose to stop favoring The Freak.  Maybe 
Dirk Allen has a shot after all. 


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