The Scarlet Pimpernel and El Zorro were the first two characters who really dipped into a variety of what Overly Sarcastic Productions calls the ‘Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass’ trope. In other words, the main character seems to be a moron (or fop or suchlike) who secretly is a badass vigilante and hero. While this was a cool twist when the stories came out, it’s a very well-known trope these days and, thus, comes with problems.
Today’s most well-known example of this CMHB trope is, of course, Batman. Bruce Wayne is clearly a playboy millionaire who doesn’t care much for anything outside of fun, right? So he certainly can’t be the paladin of seriousness that is Batman. Never mind that these two are never seen together. Nobody would ever be suspicious about that (unless it’s the Joker, but what does he know…?).
The first book about the Pimpernel came out in 1905. Then, the trope was all new and shiny, so the reveal that the foppish Sir Percy is the badass mastermind and heroic saviour of French aristocrats called the Scarlet Pimpernel was something new and unique. It was slightly less new and unique when a few years later “The Curse of Capistrano” (later renamed to “The Mark of Zorro”) revealed that ‘wet hanky’ Don Diego was secretly The Fox (that’s what ‘El Zorro’ means) all along.
Modern interpretations of those characters, on the other hand, have to deal with the problem that a) the CMHB trope is well-known already and b) everyone is aware of who really is ‘El Zorro’ (or the Pimpernel, but that’s less well-known). Therefore, modern interpretations usually simply do away with the twist and give the audience the information right away, focusing on the adventure part.
By the video linked above, the Pimpernel, Zorro, and Batman are all part of the ‘faker’ sub-type of the CMHB trope. They all do fake their moronic side - it’s a front they put up to lead people astray. After all, Sir Percy is a fop who spends his time on socializing and fashion, how could he be the Pimpernel (who often poses as ugly on purpose)? Don Diego can barely tell which end of a sabre to hold and complains severely about a few miles of riding, he could never be the master swordsman Zorro who can ride all night. Bruce Wayne is spending far too much time in clubs and with his ever-changing female acquaintances to patrol the city, so he can’t be Batman.
The faking can be more or less successful and more or less difficult, but it’s always there and allows for them to appear as being harmless and uninteresting to everyone who hunts the Pimpernel, Zorro, or Batman.
To be honest, when I first read “The Curse of Capistrano”, I was aware of who Zorro is. You can’t grow up in the western world without seeing a few movies, TV series, spoofs, or parodies (my favourite one of the Pimpernel is definitely from “Black Adder The Third”). I had already watched the fun anime series about Zorro and seen several of the older and newer movies at that point. Therefore, when I beheld Don Diego in the very first scene of the very first chapter, I didn’t seen the unmanly noble who chatted with a soldier, I saw Zorro in disguise fishing for information.
Yet, if I’m honest, even without knowing who Zorro was beforehand, I would probably have been suspicious of Don Diego soon. There’s just no place for him in the story, unless he is closely connected to Zorro. Diego gets a lot of space in the book, he gets a love interest, and bad things happen to those who threaten or mistreat his friends. He is, naturally, never around when Zorro arrives, despite being there soon beforehand. He never meets with Zorro or just gets to see him somewhere as the Fox is leaving.
Diego is the reason for a love square in the story - Senorita Lolita, the love interest, is courted by Diego (barely, given his general apathy), Zorro, and the captain of the soldiers (the bad guy). She does reject the captain for his behaviour and character and Diego for his refusal to properly court her, despite both being a way to secure a better position for her family. Her heart beats for Zorro - which is only logical, since he’s the hero. Yet, if Don Diego just were a guy who lives there, why his involvement? There’s a triangle in place early on, after all.
Why involve him so much in general? That is where it really becomes suspicious. Having him there in the first chapter to talk to the sergeant is not a problem - it’s a way to dump information into the reader’s lap. That would have been the last we see of him, though, if he didn’t have higher stakes in the story.
Yet, he turns up over and over again and at least once it’s very suspicious that he’s absent when Zorro arrives. When a group of young noblemen on a hunt for Zorro come to the country estate of Diego’s family, he’s there with his father. He excuses himself and goes to bed - before Zorro arrives and rouses the young men to join him in fighting for justice. At this point, given his father’s opinion of him, I would expect the father to order him to stay and act like a proper nobleman for once, which would have destroyed the end (which relies on those young noblemen to a degree).
Yet, the CMHB trope is a lot of fun to work with because you can play around with the two different personalities, no matter whether in earnest or for fun. The problem is to keep the twist working.
There are two ways around that I can see. The first is to forego the twist. Show that your crouching moron is a hidden badass early and let the audience go along with them on their adventures. The second is to put in a much more likely moron for the twist and then let them be pure morons instead of hidden badasses while the lesser moron becomes the badass. Both are not ideal, though.
There are more ways to do it, I guess. I will incorporate one in a novel I intend to write in a while, but I’m not talking about it here - the twist shall stay fresh.
The original “The Scarlet Pimpernel” gets around an earlier reveal by avoiding Sir Percy’s point of view. Most of the story is told from the viewpoint of his wife (who is unaware of his identity before the big reveal) and his archenemy (who clearly shouldn’t know who the Pimpernel is, either). Yet, this kind of writing means that a lot of the gratifying action is left behind, even though it has the advantage of not giving the reader details on all the complicated plans the Pimpernel hatches. For the Pimpernel, this works. For a more action-oriented character like Zorro, it would not work.
“The Curse of Capistrano” employs a lot of different viewpoints and can do Zorro’s without giving away the connection to Don Diego. Often, he’s portrayed in distant third-person, which means the reader doesn’t get any information on his thoughts or feelings. Yet, the distant third-person comes with sacrifices - the most notable being that the attachment of the reader isn’t as high as it could be otherwise. On the other hand, the distant third-person has a lot of uses in pulp writing as a such and El Zorro is a pulp hero.
Does the ‘Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass’ trope still make sense today? Can we still use it successfully? To a degree, yes. It’s not as new or as unexpected as it was when “The Scarlet Pimpernel” or “The Curse of Capistrano” were published. To a degree, today’s audiences will suspect the ‘moron’ of having been a ‘badass’ all along. It’s not as easy to pull off this trope successfully today, but it’s still possible.
A new version of the Pimpernel or Zorro can’t really pull the big reveal off any longer, because their true identities are known. A new character, on the other hand, can still be worked into a narrative without being revealed right away.
Batman, on the other hand, doesn’t really have a big reveal. With his character, it’s usually more about the balance between the moron and the badass, about challenges of being at two places at the same time, about not being found out by the populace in-universe. The audience is allowed to know who he is.
If you want to write a character with a secret identity, go ahead with it. Try to put your own spin on it, try to make something new out of the trope. Show or don’t show the real identity of your moron early. Have fun with the trope. There’s certainly even more ways to twist it around than I’ve thought of and the trope is too fun and too interesting to just drop.
No comments:
Post a Comment