The Spiralling

Bonus Feature: Writer's Commentary Part 2

In the beginning...

The general theme of the story is one of reality, of consequences- in other words, The Spiralling is in the territory of a Noir fiction, as it involves crime and vigilantism. It is quite the opposite of the superhero genre really, just like the original comics and movie, seeing that our heroes always came out badly wounded at the least, and people getting more problems than problems getting solved when our dear vigilantes kick in.

It took me some brainpower for me to decide on the title of the story. 'The Spiralling' came up in the end, among titles that would betray the story's intentions (in other words, the twist and its moral teachings, as well as the flesh of the story that I want people to savour), or are simply too direct and flashy. I always wanted something vague, mysterious and dark.

'The Spiralling' came up in the end. It worked well for me, as, from an unwary viewer, he might think, 'What spiralling?' or 'Spiralling into what?' That's exactly what I wanted. The reader might even go so far as to think, 'What's a Spiralling?' In the end, completely missing the point at first thought, but on second thought, he might upgrade to the above two thoughts ( 'Spiralling into what?') with some thinking involved.

By the end, or near end of the story, the readers should know by then what the title meant. The word 'Spiralling' in this context is something of a verb, as in Spiralling into. So 'The Spiralling' refers to something or something spiralling, or in other words, getting reduced, to a lower state. In this case, it meant Mindy spiralling into madness, insanity, grief, into her own mind and total chaos.

The spiralling may also refer to the city going down into a fever of crime and death, with Mindy doubling as what the media dubbed 'The Demoness' and killing the innocents as collaterals with criminals. This interpretation of course, is secondary, considering that my main objective was to make it mean the above. This interpretation could only have come in retrospect, but depending on the reader, it may come first.

Anyway, all my bets were on Mindy's downward spiral into pure insanity with little hope of recovery, if at all. That was the main focus of the story. The secondary focuses would be Dave Lizewski growing up, maturing and learning how to finally become a better person and superhero. This is reflected by the constant upgrade of his uniform/disguise, which went from the original all the way to the original plus a helmet, a Kevlar jacket, utility belt, pepperspray, stungun, handcuffs...

What I've decided to forego would be the fan-anticipated rivalry between Dave and Christopher, along with the character building of most of the original characters. The main focus, after all, was on Mindy and her huge problem, to put it mildly. The decision to kill off Christopher and his Red Mist alter-ego came quite easily to me, as did the decision for me to kill off Mrs. Lizewski. An auxiliary attraction is of course, the introduction of Aldan Bonitus and his search for familial happiness, during which he indivertibly assisted Kick-Ass/Dave.

A look at the characters...

Dave Lizewski/Kick-Ass: In the comic/film, Dave was just a 16 year old late teenager (If I'm not wrong) who reads comic books, had an impossible-to-break circle of friends and 'just existed' in his own words. He's just a normal teen with his own quirks as well, which is actually quite normal if you're exposed to the real world enough- he has a crush on his literature teacher, on a girl, he reads porn on the net and masturbates on it... Okay, maybe he seems a bit hyped-up on the hormones, but otherwise he's very mediocre.

What sets him apart is the actual decision he took to becoming a superhero, not just out of necessity and frustration (at being mugged and robbed), but also out of fun and curiosity. He was right to say that almost everyone would have thought of becoming a real-life superhero, but very few if not virtually no one at all would dare to don the cape.

Being quite a sheltered kid, and very naive, he came in unprepared, but to cut the story short, Kick-Ass is something like a growing up story for Dave. He experiences pain after his first 'mission' as Kick-Ass, he won his first victory, and had a first major disappointment at himself down the middle. Dave found his first love, had his first sexual encounter, killed his first villain. There are many firsts, which makes me feel that Kick-Ass is really a growing up story for him.

By the end of the comic/movie, Dave became slightly wise beyond his years- being the first instalment of the franchise, it is naturally incomplete with the main character far away from Nevada. This is what I seek to complete with this story, my take on what happens next, in other words, an unofficial sequel to Kick-Ass.

At the start of The Spiralling, Dave experiences another downfall- he lost his girlfriend, who was after all bisexual, the superhero empire he built crumbled with the death of those he inspired, and he lost the will to get out as Kick-Ass as a result. The fact that the police force is getting off their butt made him think Kick-Ass had become history; obsolete, redundant, harmful. Of course, not everyone, if not most people, don't think so, but being an incomplete moralist, he focuses more on his feelings, and decides to retire long before the story started.

By the time the story starts, he was concentrating on his actual life with his friends. Things pretty much reverted to the way they were at the start of the original comic/film, but with Mindy in the picture as a wayward Godsister and some added wisdom in Dave from his previous brush with the criminal underworld. Dave, of course, started out the story both better and worse, being much more mature, confident and willing to stand up for what is right, but he also became drained, somewhat tired of life.

His relationship had evolved from being an aid and tool to Mindy Macready/Hit-Girl in the movie/comic to becoming a friend and partner by the end of the movie/comic. In the story, with both character's alter-ego pretty much retired, they became God-siblings, but something in Mindy went wrong, and although they were still close in heart, their relationship became strained as the girl became quite rebellious, a shadow of justice and a mockery of his virtues.

Cutting to the chase, throughout The Spiralling, with some luck and application of his existing experience and wisdom, he was able to mature even further, and become a better crime-fighter. This is supposed to show through both his small and large successes throughout the story. The general trend was that he failed more in the beginning, but as time went on, he became better, being able to tackle 2 loansharks and their runner, not just by might, but also by way of words and virtue. He was at first very, very disadvantaged against Mindy as the villainous and disturbed Demoness as shown by his first and subsequent encounters with Mindy, but by the end he won out, through a mix of luck, team assistance and his accumulated skills.

Being a noir-like story that focuses on realism however, Dave still both won and lost in the end, having gotten one step forward in terms of maturity, learning and superheroism, but he had also lost his Godsister to insanity, lost his life to his selfless pursuit to help her, as well as his worries and grief for her. His ending is one that is perceived to be a bad one, despite his victory and perfection of his character and alter-ego. This however, does not mean that The Spiralling ends with an irredeemably bad ending, however...

Aldan Bonitus/Grandmaster: Aldan is a complex character that came out of the blue to me. It was the third major idea that came to me in the process of writing this story, the first being the seed of the story which I discussed about in part 1, and the second being the entire premise of The Spiralling. Aldan is complex, but inasmuch as a straightforward and honest character may go.

Before his present state, Grandmaster Aldan could be described as an intelligent, virtuous jockey who decides to lay his concentration and entire future on the dying sport of medieval swordsmanship. His backstory is that he learnt it from this other guy (who happens to be the same psychiatrist trying to treat Mindy at the end of the story) in university and decides to take it on as his career choice on reasons of passion. He got married, but his life and happiness was marred by the lack of proper employment and stable income, leading to frequent quarrels and unrest between him and his wife. Not to mention his in-laws.

Becoming distraught over his plight, he divorced her and ran away in his mid 20s, up to Southern Ontario in Canada. There, possessing still his great passion for his art, he set up a medieval swordsmanship school from scratch, with whatever he may have in his possession- perhaps all his savings, his swordsmanship equipments and by sheer will. His school can best be described as Hogwarts-like, except it teaches swordsmanship rather than magic.

Overtime, he became withdrawn from civilization and current trends ever since the early 1990s, with his only inflow of modern ideas coming from whatever students he took in. In living the life of a hermit, then a teacher and grandmaster, he became very intelligent and wise as he transferred his knowledge to others and sharpened his own craft and wits, if he isn't all of the above in his young adulthood already.

His journey in this story is very different from that of Dave's, having already reached a level of maturity as high as a grand sage. His is more on the adventure side, considering his exploration of the modern world, finding his old memories of it very outdated (He has never seen handphones smaller than bricks and televisions thinner than a wall before). Intentionally, I have made it such that his theme is that of the fantasy genre, so that I could emphasize on his self-estrangement from everything modern.

In a way, Aldan is going in the opposite direction of Dave- the latter grows up and forgets childhood happiness, while the former tries to rediscover the happiness of his youth. He does this by returning to New York in search of clues that would lead him to his wife and a kid who was born in his last encounter with his wife a decade ago. He does this of course, with the help of one of his apprentice, Michael, which he had to accept reluctantly.

Needless to say, he reached a destination on the opposite side of Dave's, having finally found everlasting happiness in the form of his real daughter, who resides in an orphanage that supports Catholic Christianity and Medieval Swordsmanship. Although he had lost his wife, he perceives this to be his ultimate happiness, having gone through thick and thin to get to her- Nevaeh was after all, the remaining part of his family. Half of infinite happiness is still infinite happiness.