Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Ian MacGregor: Scottish for Villain

Unlike a few other characters (Emma, Becky, Dan, etc.) Ian MacGregor did not exist in any form before A Hero's Journey.  You might wonder why Ian is Scottish.  Do I have a thing against Scots?  Well, there are a lot of Dilloways in England, so maybe there is some resentment in my family tree.  But I do like Sean Connery and Groundskeeper Willie if that means anything. 

The better explanation is that in one of the earliest stories I did mentioning the Scarlet Knight, the creation of the armor was set in Arthurian times.  And so since the red armor was in England, the black armor came from Scotland since if you've seen "Braveheart" you'd know they're mortal enemies.  So I guess it made sense for the man who becomes the Black Dragoon to hail from Scotland.

I suppose you could consider this a spoiler, since there's supposed to be some mystery about who the Black Dragoon is, though I think it's kind of obvious.  It's less obvious for our hero but then she doesn't have the benefit of all the evidence.

J is for Joubert Clan:  A Family of Witches

10 comments:

Rusty Carl said...

So, there is supposed to be a mystery surrounding the villain but you said its no big deal because it's easy to figure out... That strikes me as awesome in a way I don't think I can articulate.

PT Dilloway said...

Well it's kind of like in the first "Spider-Man" movie where Peter Parker doesn't know the identity of the Green Goblin until the end of the movie but we all know who it is because we saw what happened to him.

stephen Hayes said...

Interesting. You say this fellow in the picture is a villain? He looks a bit nerdy, perhaps a bit of an intellectual with a problem getting laid, but he doesn't look evil to me. Maybe I'm just projecting....

PT Dilloway said...

Well he does have a pregnant wife at the beginning of the story, so he's gotten laid at least once. I really should have given him a handlebar mustache, then you'd know he's evil.

Briane said...

It's always the nerds who make the worst villains: Lex Luthor, Harry Osborne, Curt Connors, probably others. Unless it's the jocks. Didn't "Flash Whatshisname" in Spider-Man become the Hobgoblin? Then again, sometimes it's the entities from other worlds, like when he fought his own suit. I think that Spider-Man was the only comic ever to make clothing the bad guy.

The more I read about your book, the more I'm looking forward to reading it. So this blog is working. The alphabet has that effect on me, too, though, so you're really doubling up here.

Briane said...

Dang it.

I had a great comment about villains and the Internet ate it.

Imagine me saying something witty here, and then throwing in a vague compliment, and then somehow redirecting it all back to ME ME ME.

There. You've got the gist of what I said.

Briane said...

ARRGH.

Now BOTH comments are up. I don't know what's going on. Clearly my Internet is out to get me today.

Michael Offutt, Phantom Reader said...

I think it's interesting that you are choosing to imbue within the magical armors feelings of racism. In other words, that the dragoon's armor is opposed to and wants to destroy the scarlet armor because one is Scottish and the other is English. So are they sentient? Like the symbiote is in Spider-Man that tries to take over Peter Parker but when he resists, it goes to the guy that becomes Venom? Also...who made the armor? If it was Arthurian times is Merlin involved with the creation of the Scarlet Knight's armor? And if the black dragoon's armor comes from the same time period...are you saying that perhaps Morgana is behind it? I really really like Arthurian stuff. This has got me intrigued.

PT Dilloway said...

The King Arthur stuff was only in a different story, long ago. In this story the scarlet and black armors both date from around 2000 BC (or BCE or whatever they call it now). Though yes the red armor was created by Merlin way back in the day. Merlin is not in this story (he gets a cameo in #3 and #8). As for the black armor, who created it is dealt with in the third story of the series (also the sixth and eighth stories). Both of the armors are sentient in a way. The scarlet armor is more benign but has defenses built into it. Like if someone evil were to try wearing the scarlet armor, it will kill that person. The black armor, like the black suit in Spider-Man, tends to corrupt its user to drive him to do more evil stuff.

There's more about some of this stuff in other entries, especially O and W.

Michael Offutt, Phantom Reader said...

I think that's really cool. I'm toying with some Arthurian stuff in my own story. It won't be nearly as detailed. Just some neat items that could be fun to play with.

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