Worst researched article about scriptwriting (and novels) ever? "It is Cromwell's goodness that corrodes him, his loyalty to Cardinal Newman that fixes him on the same tragic trajectory as both Macbeth and Michael Corleone." First of all, John Yorke, this is not the Cardinal you're looking for. The Cardinal Thomas Cromwell used to work for is named Wolsey, Newman living a few centuries later and being the most prominent Anglo Catholic before becoming a Roman Catholic, which in the light of Thomas Cromwell's main claim to historical fame makes this sentence even more hilarious than it already is. Also, h ow you can read Hilary Mantel's
Wolf Hall and
Bringing Up The Bodies and emerge with the conclusion that Cromwell's increasing loss of humanity is caused because of his loyalty to Wolsey is somewhere beyond me. (Unless, of course, you really think that Cromwell brings down Anne Boleyn & friends because they've been mean to the Cardinal, as opposed to treating the opportunity to pick men to frame as Anne's lovers as an occasion to pick those men who gloated over Wolsey as an added bonus, but hey, maybe Yorke read two different novels. Well read different books and watch different films & tv shows. (Something I was reminded again of this past week with my feelings re: the
Being Human finale being the exact opposite of the reason I've seen a lot elsewhere, while what I loved about the most recent
Once Upon A Time ep was not necessarily what some other reviewing watchers loved.) But the article really
is badly researched, quite aside from the Newman/Wolsey gaffe. I mean:
We don't like Satan in Paradise Lost – we love him. And we love him because he's the perfect gleeful embodiment of evil. Niceness tends to kill characters. Oh, good lord. Have you
read Paradise Lost?
Gleeful? This would be the fellow who spends most of the poem angsting about his enstrangement from God and railing against the injustice of
Dad his creator, and going after the younger kids, speak: Adam and Eve because why should
they be happy if he can't? (And I'll never go back, Dad, never mind you kicked me out, I'm so not coming back, dad, so there!) Seriously, though, if you want a gleeful devil, you can go for Goethe's Mephisto in
Faust (though he, too, has the occasional two lines melancholic moment, but mostly he's witheringly sarcastic and enjoying himself), not for Satan from
Paradise Lost. As for "niceness tends to kill characters", well, that depends. I love a shady anti hero(ine) or a good villain as much as the next media consumant (see my recent attack of love for the most evil villain to grace the
Once Upon A Time screen on a semi regular basis), but I've long grown out of that teenage good = boring attitude. It depends on the situation you put your character in and on the types of relationships you give to him or her.
Call the Midwife, which just wrapped up its second season, is full of nice, and I use the word unironically and not to mean the opposite which it often does in fandom, characters. An entire ensemble of them. And guess what? It's not boring.
In conclusion: grow up, John Yorke, do your research, and/or get a better editor. P.S. The quote in the title of this post is from
The Vision of Judgment by Byron. That one has a good Satan in it, too, though not a gleeful one.