Ten Deep 2.25.09: Special Character Breakdowns Edition

Posted by Lucas Huddleston on 02.25.2009

This week, 411's Lucas Huddleston offers up something different, as he offers up his breakdowns of three different, random characters, before giving tribute to someone special.

Hello, and welcome to Ten Deep: Week 21! This week is a ‘Special Edition' of sorts, and things are a little bit different than what you're used to, I'm sure. Since I haven't answered any comments the past few weeks that the column HAS been posted, there's far too many to relate. But there's a couple that stick out in my mind…

For the Van Damme list from two weeks ago, a lot of people were pulling for Cyborg to be on the list. I had planned to put that film in the rankings of ‘Honorable Mention', but totally forgot to add it as time wound down. Still, as I said though, I would personally put it in ‘Honorable Mentions', as there are ten movies that I liked better. And thanks for those that corrected me on stating that Universal Soldier was originally the sequel to the Masters of the Universe film, when it was indeed Cyborg. That's the first actual factual error that I've had since way back in Week 1 (or at least I think it is). That's what happens when I write off the top of my head. I'm bound to run into trouble.

And to Parxy, who refuted my claim that Star Trek ranked as a fallen franchise. In my opinion, it IS a fallen franchise in a fashion, because I feel that the bread and butter of Trek is what's committed to film. I'm sure that the franchise still pulls in a ton of money through DVD sales, book sales, and the like, but still…since the cancellation of Enterprise, these past five or six years is the longest stretch of time that we've gone without a new Trek series or film since the mid-1980's. I stand by that it's indeed fallen…that doesn't mean that it's down and out, obviously, but it has faltered a bit, in my opinion.

This week's edition of Ten Deep is a bit different from the normal routine. This week, there's no list to offer up, and that's fine with me. I have something special attached to this column, so with the need to free up some space, I felt that the best way to do that was to not do a list with detail on ten subjects. So this week, I offer up a few character breakdowns instead. Digging into characters that intrigue me (or just characters that I like that also happen to be somewhat shallow) is one of the many things that I ponder as I go about the excruciating boredom that accompanies my real-world occupation, so this should be fun for me, hopefully for you, as well. I might do it again, I might not…who knows? At any rate, here you are, my breakdowns of three somewhat random characters that I enjoy, starting with perhaps the most random of them all…

Mer-Man



Now, I've never really been all that keen on underwater super-powered characters, such as Aquaman or Namor…but Mer-Man has always stood as being the exception to the rule for me. I'm really not one-hundred percent sure as to why that is, but my guess would be that perhaps since Mer-Man was one of the original figures to have been featured prominently in the very first line of MotU toys, he may have very well been the first He-Man toy that was bought for me way back when, during a time in my life that I don't even remember. Whatever the reason may be, I've always held a bit of an affinity for Mer-Man…though after one look at those other figures that were a part of that initial wave of Masters toys, with the likes of He-Man, Skeletor, Man-at-Arms, Teela, and Beast-Man…well, it's pretty clear which one of those characters stands out the LEAST. Yeah, that would be Mer-Man. Why is that, you ask? Because he sucks, right? Wrong…or at least, so I would make you believe.

For those that still aren't in the know, Mer-Man is a character from the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe franchise, specifically appearing as one of Skeletor's many cronies…and that's pretty much the extent of him. As I'm sure even those who haven't a clue as to who Mer-Man is can deduce from the name alone, Mer-Man stands as being a super-powered amphibious being; as with most ocean-dwelling super-heroes/villains, the true usefulness of Mer-Man and his talents are almost one-hundred percent derived from, and nearly totally depend on, his physical contact with water. When in the water, the levels of Mer-Man's physical strength and agility increases significantly (though how significant has, to the best of my knowledge, never really been officially stated through the cartoons/toys…however, I've always preferred to believe that when Mer-Man is in the water, he's the most physically powerful of all Skeletor's henchmen), and additionally Mer-Man has the ability to control other amphibious life-forms through telepathy, which is, of course, a requisite for ALL amphibious super-powered beings. So naturally, only a handful of episodes from the original and the 2002 series' took place in locations that truly provided an ideal situation with which to make the most out of Mer-Man's special abilities…and it was conceivably due to that little fact that Mer-Man became what we all pretty much know him to be – a goof, a complete and utter buffoon, left to be scraped up as little more than your typical comedy relief. What a shame, because whether you realize it or not, Mer-Man has some definite potential to be (or at least should have been) one of the more intriguing villains in the MotU canon. And all you need to do to see that is strip away the buffoonery.

While future writers for the cartoons/mini-comics would go on to hamper the character through a lack of creative uses for him (or the lack of actually being allowed to do so through administrative decrees, budget, or what-have-you), it seems to me that during those initial few years of the infantile state of the franchise that Mer-Man was originally planned to have been featured somewhat prominently in the pantheon of Skeletor's minions. After all, he WAS one of the very first characters created for the line; beyond that, it has also been alluded to that Mer-Man is, in fact, a king in his own right, as he rules over the underwater kingdom, though whether or not his lordship stands over one individual region or over the entire oceanic landscape of Eternia has, again, never been explicitly confirmed...though it has indeed been implied a few times that Mer-Man is indeed the Master over all aquatic life/kingdoms found in Eternia. Now, if Mer-Man was indeed the king of just one amphibious kingdom, one could see how and why Mer-Man would pledge his fealty to one such as Skeletor: Mer-Man, being an evil king (and since evil kings are normally bent on seizing more and more power…), would undoubtedly desire to rule over ALL the underwater kingdoms found in the oceans of Eternia, and so allying himself with the powerful Skeletor in an effort to destroy He-Man and the other Heroic Warriors would provide the means to that particular end, as perhaps Mer-Man pledged his resources to Skeletor's effort in exchange for Skeletor's aid in Mer-Man's quest to gain lordship over the oceans. However, when one ponders on the possibility that Mer-Man is ALREADY the lord of all the oceans…why, even a total fool could see how that changes things up quite a bit for the character, and gives him a whole different slant as to who he really is and why he does what he does.

For you see, if Mer-Man had had the ambition and the constant drive to conquer the entire ocean and all the life that it holds, that would mean that Mer-Man would essentially be the underwater equivalent to Skeletor, but with one major difference between the two – Mer-Man achieved his goal, and evil actually won (as far as the underwater realms goes, that is). Now, no mere goof can rule over every single inch that the oceans encompass, so ‘buffoon' Mer-Man seems even MORE out of place when we assume that he rules over seventy-to-eighty percent of Eternia…and as such, it's much more conceivable that he would be a really, REALLY hard-core despot, a caricature of the likes of Stalin or Hitler taken to the extreme (or even more extreme, I should say) degree. I imagine that he'd be completely military minded, crushing all those that even slightly step out of line, eliminating all who dared to stand against him with extreme prejudice, and be a truly ferocious and fear-inspiring entity in his rule, constantly on the hunt to exert his control on anything and everything that wished. Which, of course, gives the perfect reason as to why Mer-Man would team up with Skeletor – for more power, of course, as with the entire oceans already consumed by his ambitions of evil, I can't fathom as to why Mer-Man WOULDN'T set his sights on the land-borne kingdoms.

Indeed, going by the logic that accompanies this fairly drastic change in persona that would seemingly go hand-in-hand with Mer-Man acting like an actual Overlord, his relationship with Skeletor himself would also change fairly dramatically once the ‘incompetent fool' aspects of Mer-Man are stripped away. Assuming that Mer-Man is that tyrannical ‘Evil Ocean Warlord' and the amphibious equivalent to Skeletor, it's highly unlikely that Mer-Man would out-and-out pledge himself to Skeletor's cause as the cowering subordinate that he is depicted as being in the shows, nor do I think that Mer-Man would be the first to extend his help towards Skeletor's cause, for even though Mer-Man quite possibly would want to rule over the land-based kingdoms of Eternia as well, he's already conquered a vast majority of the world…so, really, what would Skeletor have to offer him? I'd suspect that, in this situation, Skeletor would be the one to propose a coordinating effort on behalf of both parties initially, for the simple reason that, while Skeletor may indeed be the more powerful of the two villains, Mer-Man, being the Overlord over all the kingdoms and peoples that the oceans hold, would undoubtedly have ten times (if not more) the resources (i.e. armies, weaponry, etc.) than Skeletor would have, given Skeletor's admittedly somewhat limited foothold in the world. As such, the interpersonal dynamics between would-be ruler of the surface world and the absolute ruler of the aquatic world wouldn't necessarily be a relationship of master/servant (unless Mer-Man was the more dominant and Skeletor the subservient…though I doubt that Skeletor would demean himself in that fashion, given his personality); instead, logic would dictate that the relationship between the two beings would be one of two rivals banding together for a single cause…a cause that, IF the forces of evil won, would ultimately split the two, for if the Evil Masters were indeed able to defeat He-Man and take over all of Eternia, undoubtedly one would turn on the other in effort to control EVERYTHING. When you throw in the equally ambitious Evil-Lyn into the mix, on the day that evil won, the world would be plunged into further turmoil as a war between the two lords of the world and the woman that is quite possibly the third or fourth most powerful being on Eternia would begin with the unanimous goal being ultimate rule over the world. Unless, of course, one of the three were able to harness the power of Greyskull, as that would undoubtedly give victory to any such person that was able to harness its power…in which case, perhaps the bumbling fool incarnation of Mer-Man that we all know is a mere ACT on the part of the aquatic king, as a means to sabotage Skeletor's attempts at attaining more magical/physical power by garnering the secrets of Greyskull. At least, that's what I prefer to believe in the end: 'Mer-Man the Fool' isn't his actual personality, it's merely a ploy to hamper Skeletor's desires to essentially become a god, so that when the day comes, Mer-Man can make his move and rule the entire world.

Oh well, ultimately it really doesn't matter, as no doubt Mer-Man will eternally play the part of the fool. However, as I hope you can ascertain from what I've shed light on here, I believe that Mer-Man is by far the most under-utilized and mishandled character in the MotU mythology (and perhaps the most deceptive), as he has the potential to be far more than what writers and such have allowed him to be.

Cotton Hill



Out of all of the animated television shows that have aired during prime-time over the years, King of the Hill has always been my favorite from the very first time I watched the show, even over such stalwarts as The Simpson's, Family Guy, South Park, Futurama, and The Flintstones. In fact, I personally believe that the show has long been the class of Fox's Sunday ‘Animation Domination', as The Simpson's has long been a shadow of it's former self, and King of the Hill separates itself from the others by presenting actually strong and deep characters, while the other shows present mere caricatures. Even though I don't live in Texas and Arlen is absolutely HUMUNGOUS compared to my hometown, I can easily relate to just about everything with the show. Weapon-loving conspiracy nut? Yeah, I know him…his name's Dusty, and he lives down the road from me (you should hear him lament the fact that the Native Americans are planning an uprising and will soon take over the States, or how the computer chips that car companies put in engines are programmed to slowly destroy the engine from the inside after three years in a scam to get the public to continuously buy new cars). Sloppy drunk who's a shadow of his former good-looking, physical-specimen self? That archetype's a dime a dozen around here…as is the unintelligible hillbilly in his late-30's/early-40's who thinks he's a sex machine and drives around in a souped up muscle car. I personally can easily relate to Bobby in a lot of ways, for while I was never chubby like him, I was indeed one of the ‘weird' kids in Brumley – ‘weird' in the fact that I was interested in things like History and Literature, and not particularly interested in driving back-hoes or in taking up carpentry/construction/electrical work (which is the typical job in these parts) as a field of employment. Being a writer that makes enough money at it to become full-time? Pipe dream, or so says everyone around here. Peggy Hill isn't really all that similar to my mother in appearance (nor does my mom speak any language other than English), but my mom is (somewhat unconsciously) competitive with other women when it comes to the things that she does best (i.e. cooking, sewing, etc.), just like Peggy is. And as for Hank, well, again, he doesn't look specifically like my own father (though he kind of does), but he acts JUST like my dad: he takes great pride in his work, no matter how menial it may be; he's courteous and polite; and even at times it feels as though it's hard for him to relate to me, just as how Hank sometimes finds it difficult to relate to Bobby. I've always felt that the most important thing with shows or stories are the characters, and if you can find a show/story that has a multitude of characters that you can relate with, then you've got something special on your hands. To me, King of the Hill is one of those special shows, no matter what other people may think about it. However, there is one character on the show that seems to encompass the personalities of a lot of people that I'm close to, and it just so happens to be my favorite character on the show: Cotton Hill.

For those who don't know, Cotton Hill was (though still is) the father for the series' main character, speaking of Hank Hill, of course, and if I was to give someone the ‘short n' sweet' summing up of Cotton's personality, I'd tell them that Cotton's main defining trait (besides the fact that lost his shins in sacrifice for this country during the war effort in WWII) is that Cotton Hill is arguably one of the biggest assholes walking (or waddling) the face of the Earth. And if they were to ask me ‘why is that', I'd go on to expound a bit by saying that Cotton is an abusive, bigoted, misogynistic, and racist little man, given to violent outbursts at times, a human being who's just plain intolerant of other human beings that's different than him. He's lewd and crass when he speaks, and truly doesn't care about what others think of him or what he does (or so it would seem…). In all honesty, it would appear that, on the surface, Cotton pretty much despises every other human being on the planet, with the exceptions of Bobby and his third son, G.H. (or Good Hank), who's an infant. He speaks of his first wife, Tilly (who is Hank's biological mother), as though she was the most disgusting piece of filth he'd ever laid eyes on. He once left his second wife, Didi (mother of Good Hank, and former class mate of Hank, thus making her much younger than Cotton), because her rear-end had gotten smaller. He tolerates Dale almost for the sole reason that Dale brown-noses so much, which allows Cotton to bask in the warm glow of the absolute praise that he believes everyone should give him, though beyond that, Cotton really would have little to do with goofball Dale. Cotton absolutely loathes Peggy, and never once during the show's entire run with Cotton before his death did Cotton ever call Peggy by her name, instead always referring to her simply as ‘Hank's wife'. Indeed, on the surface, even Hank has found himself on the receiving end of Cotton's everlasting distaste…I mean, he named his third son Good Hank (and started to refer to Hank as ‘Bad Hank'), and even tried to force Hank into giving up the name ‘Hank' so that his new son could get a do-over for the name, for crying out loud (though I believe that there's more to that than meets the eye…). And THAT'S just covering Cotton's disdain for the people that are closest to the man. Taking that into account, it should be relatively easy for one to determine that Cotton seems to truly hate people and society, which would thus make him a sociopath. While I will freely and readily admit that Cotton may be a tad ‘touched' in his old age (i.e. crazy), I really don't believe that Cotton's behavior really extends itself that much past the usual off-beat and ‘don't give a damn' characteristics that we've come to accept as a caricature for men when they officially become ‘elderly', though Cotton's is admittedly a bit to the extreme; in Cotton's case, when it comes to his mistreatment of the people that love him, and particularly in the mental/emotional anguish that he constantly bombards Hank with, I believe that Cotton is torn between the distinction of two separate ideals that don't necessarily go hand-in-hand: love and respect.

Allow me to expound on that, just in order to make myself a bit clearer on that point. I have an uncle that served in the United States Marine Corps when he was younger; the fact that he served perhaps means more to him than anything else in the world, and he wears that label with a degree of great personal pride. I, like all the males in my extended family, grew up with him constantly pushing and prodding me into joining at least some branch of the military, and for most of my senior year of high school, I actually did indeed plan on joining the Air Force. However, as that particular year played out, I became less and less enamored with the thought of it, if only for the fact that I knew that joining the military wasn't for me, so I instead opted to attend Central Missouri State University. After I had dropped out of school two years later, my uncle once again began to try and persuade me to join the military, and when it became almost certain that I wasn't going to join the military at any point in my life, his demeanor towards me changed. He began to really bust my chops over every little thing that I did, criticizing every move that I made or didn't make…and it wasn't just me that he treated that way, but ALL the males in the family that didn't join the military, even his own son. Eventually, it got to a point that his constant picking at my life was driving me to be emotionally conflicted about the man, and I at last confronted him about it, albeit in a more indirect, non-confrontational manner. It was then that he laid out for me how he felt about things, and that was this, in a nutshell: he likes a lot of people, loves few, and respects even less than that. Essentially, the respect that he bestows upon others has been narrowed to one certain criterion in which to receive said respect – you must be a veteran of one of the branches of the United States military.

That, in another nutshell, sums up Cotton's relationship with Hank, in my opinion. Cotton loves Hank, yet his abusive approach to the relationship between father and son is directly stemmed from the fact that, while Cotton may love his son, he doesn't respect him. In Cotton's case, he has created such a limited spectrum of what it takes to earn his respect, one that is even more limited than my real-life uncle's criteria; as far as Cotton is concerned, it seems as though if you didn't serve in World War II in the struggle against the ‘Nazzies' and the ‘Tojos', he just simply can't allow himself to respect you, even if you had served in the military during a separate war effort, a fact that was made clear during the episode where Cotton refused to allow the veterans of the Vietnam War to join Arlen's local VFW (even going so far as to sum up his opinion on Vietnam vets as being little more than ‘dope-smokin' losers'). Indeed, when you really sit back and think about it, the only characters that Cotton treats with the utmost of decency (besides Bobby and G.H., of course) are his fellow WWII veterans; beyond that, nothing and no one else seems to garner much of his respect, if any at all. It is because of the fact that Cotton has wedged himself into such a narrow view of what a ‘man' truly is and what it is that defines a person that should be given respect, that Cotton just simply cannot allow himself to respect his own son. He looks at Hank and he sees a boy that had all the potential to be a great man in his own physicality, a man that eschewed ‘respect' as defined by Cotton by getting married straight out of high school and buying a little house, with the chief concern of raising a family; however, it should also stand to note that, had Hank not married Peggy and joined the military, he may have (depending on Hank's age) served in Vietnam, or perhaps even the Gulf War, and even THEN Hank wouldn't have gained Cotton's unrequited respect, due to his view of respect being so limited. Cotton watched his closest buddies fight their damnedest and die in the name of their country, and he himself gave up a ‘normal' life in the same cause, proudly becoming handicapped for the rest of his life, ‘proudly' because he lost his shins in the name of Uncle Sam. Given what he's seen, what he's experienced…how can he respect a man that's content to take so much pride in a propane job, that's content to work, eat, sleep, and drink beer in the back-alley? That's something that Cotton did only AFTER he'd been handicapped.

However, as I said, that's where Cotton becomes the most conflicted within himself, because while he just can't bring himself to respect his son, he really truly does love Hank, and Cotton has proven that time and again. Sometimes, Cotton proves his love to Hank in a subtle, almost unnoticeable fashion, as you'll notice that in most cases when people who aren't particularly close to him are in his company, Cotton will almost exclusively refer to Hank as ‘my boy', which in Cotton's case IS a subtle way of showing his love towards his son (since he's not referring to Hank in his usual array of ‘niceties', such as ‘stupid' and ‘loser'). Cotton once even helped Peggy rehabilitate after she had suffered a skydiving incident that nearly left her paralyzed from the waist down, and while the reasons that he did so could very well be construed as Cotton having a sliver of respect for ‘Hank's wife' (his main inspirational speech for her returning to her feet was the promise that if she did so, he'd allow her to dance on his grave), I believe that he did it for Hank. Perhaps the biggest instance of the love that Cotton held for Hank happened during an episode where, after Buck Strickland (Hank's employer and somewhat father figure) gave Hank a raise, Hank told Buck that he loved him. This truly upset Cotton, as he realized that Hank had never once in all his life told Cotton that he loved him; as such, Cotton threw a violence-driven temper tantrum, as he began to destroy a house that Hank and his friends had built for a poor immigrant family. Peggy recognized the source of Cotton's emotional malady, and prompted Hank to confront Cotton, and appease him by telling him that he loved him. Instead, Hank told his father that he hated him, which very nearly drove Cotton into a psychotic frenzy. Yet ultimately, Cotton wasn't so daft as to not know the truth as to Hank's feelings, as he has readily admitted that he'd been a bad father to Hank, and a massive P.O.S. overall; the fact that he'd lived his life in the manner that he did ate him up on the inside, a fact that only came to the surface during Cotton's most vulnerable moments, such as when he was worried that he'd be committed to a nursing home for the rest of his life (though the fact that Cotton only admitted to such things during times of his own personal strife speaks to the character's selfishness). As such, I believe that Cotton's acknowledgment of his mistreatment of Hank is in and of itself the sole reason that Cotton chose to name his third son Hank as well; not that he thought that Hank had made nothing of the name and that the name needed to be bequeathed upon someone more deserving…but that by having Hank again, Cotton could rectify the mistakes that he had made in raising the original Hank. Good Hank speaks not to the fact that the infant will grow to be the son that Cotton feels he should have had, but that, this time around, Cotton would have given Hank all the things that he DIDN'T give the first Hank…that he'd treat this Hank ‘Good'. Or so I think, anyway.

For being a crazy old bastard, Cotton is actually a fairly deep and complex character, perhaps one of the most complex animated characters that has ever graced our television screens. During the episode that Cotton died, I'll admit that I was indeed saddened by the Colonel's passing, because while some could argue that characters such as Dale Gribble, Bill Dauterive, or Boomhauer may very well be a dime-a-dozen (though I don't think so), a character like Cotton Hill isn't. Compare Cotton to Peter Griffin's dad, or to Grandpa Simpson (however heretical that may be). Cotton is something that those characters could never be – he's an actual character.

Norman Bates



Is Norman Bates really a monster? I'd say it's about half-and-half, half yes, half no…though I should state that when taking a gander at a character such as Norman Bates in an effort to dig a little deeper into the mind and machinations of the character, it's a little more difficult than it would be for most others. The reason for that should be somewhat self-explanatory, though I'll go ahead and state the obvious here: since Norman Bates' being is occupied by TWO personalities, the question must be asked as to what personality is real. Of course, the simple answer for that would be that Norman's personalities can be specifically broken down into being, 1.) Norman's actual personality, and 2.) Norman's mother's personality that Bates assimilated into his own mind. However, I don't think that it would be that big of a stretch to assume that NEITHER personality is Norman's own.

When we're first introduced to Bates in the film Psycho, he comes across to the audience as being an intelligent, bashful, and somewhat innocuous ‘boy-next-door' type. He obviously SEEMS to have been raised ‘right', as he's an upstanding, polite, and courteous young fellow, and even perhaps a bit of a ‘sunny-side up' type of optimist, as he also comes across as being somewhat chipper in his (then) current situation of dealing with his ‘mother'. As he details to the character of Marion Crane, he does indeed seem to recognize the fact that the relationship of emotional dependency that he has with his mother is unhealthy, though when Marion suggests that he have her put away in an institution, Norman dismisses the idea in anger. Norman is steadfastly loyal to his mother (as most only sons are), and his loyalty towards his mother is later solidified after Marion's murder. Now, we all know that, physically, it was Norman that stabbed Marion to death in the shower (after he got his little peep show, but more on that in a minute…); however, mentally or psychologically (whichever you prefer, I'd guess), it truly wasn't Norman that drove the butcher's knife into Marion's body over and over again. In Norman's mind, it was his mother. So it would appear that when ‘Norman' discovered the grisly murder and he covered it up to the smallest detail so that no crime appeared to have been committed, Norman wasn't covering up HIS crime…he was covering up his mother's crime. He was, in his mind, protecting his mother, though clearly Norman appears to be disgusted and horrified with the actions of his ‘mother'. In essence, in this ‘personality', Norman is a victim, albeit a conscious accomplice, as he detests the slaughter of the woman, yet is far too bound to his ‘mother' to allow her actions to be discovered and punished by any other person. He does so not out of fear (as I'm sure that Norman doesn't necessarily fear his ‘mother')…but out of love and loyalty to his ‘mother'. So if in his ‘Norman' personality, Norman Bates is kindly and giving, pretty much an overall good guy who's only fault is the inability to see past the love and loyalty that he casts towards his ‘mother' to the point that he's willing to cover-up the murders that she commits. However, ‘kindly', ‘giving', ‘love', and ‘loyalty' are hardly the kind of words that one would use to describe Norman's own actions in the past, where in a fit of psychotic jealousy, Norman poisoned and killed his actual mother and her boyfriend. Now, I can understand that one would say that the ‘Norman' in the film is in all actuality Norman's real personality, and that the murdering of his mother and her boyfriend occurred within a psychotic episode; however, in my opinion, for Norman to kill the mother that he loves so dearly seems to be a bit much, given said love for the woman. At the end of the film, the doctor states that Norman grew disturbed after the death of his biological father, which leads me to believe that perhaps Norman thought very highly of his father (since not much else is explained about him, other than ‘he died')…so, perhaps, in that instant of jealous rage, THAT was the real Norman, striking back at his mother for what he perceived to be infidelity, in a way. Then, perhaps, the kindly ‘Norman' that is showcased throughout the film isn't based on Norman himself at all…but an behaving as his father would, not replicating his personality as he does his mother's, but merely behaving as he would. Or perhaps not. Food for thought, at least.

As for Norman's ‘mother' personality, one need only uncover what Norman's mother was like when she was actually alive. While there are no out-and-out definitions as to what type of person she was, Norman's portrayal of her gives us all the clues we need to finding out what type of person she is. Particularly at the end of the film, when after being captured and the ‘mother' persona has completely engulfed Norman's being, ‘Mother' is prepared to essentially throw her son to the wolves in order to get away with ‘her' own crimes, with little hesitation in doing so. That little episode would lead one to believe that, while Norman may have thought very highly of his mother, she may have been far more abusive and uncaring towards her son than his actions towards ‘her' reflect. At the same time, given Norman's peeping on Marion in her room, followed by that character's demise at the hands of ‘Mother', one could easily ascertain that ‘Mother' was, in real life, as insanely jealous of other people who caught Norman's eye as Norman was of his mother and her new boyfriend…though that may not be the case, as one must also contemplate the very real possibility of Norman's own psychotic behavior leeching over onto how he perceives his mother to be, or to have been at one point, though she may have never really, truly been the wretched person that ‘she' appears to be as Norman acts ‘her' out. Or maybe, just maybe, they were both crazy S.O.B.'s.

All in all, I can honestly say that I'm not really all THAT concerned with nailing what makes Norman Bates tick as much as I would be with other characters. After all, he's a psycho, and they say that no one can ever truly figure out what makes the psychotic be what they are.

...

Now for the ‘special' part that makes this a ‘special edition' for my column. As some of you may have been astute enough to determine due to my absence last week, my grandmother passed away two weeks ago, the day following my last column. I'll readily admit that I'm not a movie expert; I'm just a guy that watches a lot of movies, knowing what I like and don't like when I watch films. Instead, I'm more of a just a straight-up writer…I've done it for years and years, never having the guts to send anything off or let anybody else read anything I write, and it's the only thing that I can say that I'm truly good at (though some people might refute that). When my grandma died, some family members gave money to help pay for the services; I don't make a lot of money – I can't even save up money that well. Some of the family cooked up a great big dinner for everybody; I can't cook. So what could I do for my grandmother? Write something, naturally, and so what follows is a little ode to my grandmother that I've spent time writing since her death – as such, if anyone doesn't want to read it, then you're not obligated by me to do so. Now, I should state that I'm not one-hundred percent happy with it, even less happy than I am with my usual stuff (and I honestly usually HATE my stuff), and that's more due to the fact that I'm the type of writer that simply cannot write during emotional peaks, as it keeps me from thinking straight. As such, I'm much better at giving something a while to stove away in my brain in order to give it time to slowly ripen, kind of like a crock pot. The thing has gone through several starts and stops, and given more time, it could change completely. I personally don't think that I gave it time enough, but still, it's the least I could do, and I wanted to do it, so here it goes. Also, I'm happy in a way because it stands as being the first bit of writing that I've done here…not to say that my usual stuff isn't writing, I just approach it in a much more informal manner, so that what you read is essentially how I talk. Here, that's not the case. Hope you enjoy it.

THE PEAR TREE

By Luke Huddleston

She was my grandmother, and she was a good woman.

On the eleventh day in the month of February, in the year of two-thousand-and-nine, the outside world lay bombarded by a low, murky canopy of gray and violet clouds, the steady, constant thrumming of the pounding rains casting the early morning hours in a hue of dull silver. However, it wasn't the surging cascade of raindrops that smashed forcefully against the outer walls of the house that awakened me, nor was it the heavy trampling rolls of thunder that rang above the clouds…it was the shrill, pitched shrieking of the telephone that jolted me from my slumber of peaceful obliviousness. On the other end of the line, my mother, informing me that the time had drawn near, that the inevitable that had at one time dawdled thoughtlessly in the foreseeable future had at last lurched into the present. One hour, maybe two, was all the precious time that I had left to spend in this world with my grandmother, and since the hospital where she lay in agony, gasping her last breaths in this plane of existence, rested nearly forty-five minutes away, I hardly had any time left to lose in order to see her take her final breath, to be there by her side when she would at long last give up all the pain, all the suffering, and embrace the beyond eternal.

I left – three hours later, I left, shortly after I received the second phone call, the one where I was told that she had finally passed. My decision to tarry until the delay had proven ultimate, an unconscious decision made on my part, a decision whose fruit would not bear itself at that moment, not against the withering strain of the unfortunate events that masquerade about as that which we call Life. There was no thought to it – it was as though I received that first call, then the second all within a matter of minutes, not hours. Perhaps I had fallen back into the obliviousness of sleep, perhaps I had ignorantly given into denial after so many months of preparing myself for said inevitable practices, perhaps… There was no thought to it. There was only me, alone, driving along the highways and by-ways of the nothing that surrounded me, stricken on all sides by the unnerved weather. There was no thought to it, for if there had been such a thing in my actions, I would not have driven towards a place from which to witness a person, my grandmother, lying prone in a strange bed in a strange place, having at last given in to that which we call Life. The end had come and gone, and yet, it lingered…lingered so that I could gaze upon it.

She was born Dorsie Mae Witt, born the daughter of Fred and Parthena Witt, sister to Daisy, Delcie, Donnie, and Doral, all born with good, country names. Though raised not five miles from the very spot that her grandchildren would be raised, her childhood had been somewhat of a foreign notion to me as I grew up. I had never really tried to prod from her the details of her childhood, as, when a child, the thought of a grandparent being a child once upon a time is difficult to imagine. Now that the opportunity to do such a thing has come and gone, the realization that the one thing I can know never truly know about my grandmother has taken hold, the realization that I will now never know how she grew up. Yet, I think that I do know, and have always known – I'd like to believe that she crafted her influence in my childhood as others had done for her. Some of my earliest memories entail painted images of shuffling alongside her noble, yet earthly gait, the rocks of the gravel road crunching under our feet as our weight ground them against one another, the soft breeze casually brushing against the tall grass at our sides as we went. Memories that include the never-forgotten tangibility of familiar touches, such as the slight slap of the long leafs of the corn stalks across my face as I plunged deep into the towering thrushes of my grandmother's garden, or the rough, stiff pops of the pea-pods as I cracked them in my hands, in imitation of her, watching her do it first. Memories that harbor fragrances and tastes that I'll never forget, fragrances and tastes that still cause me to tilt my head in a peculiar manner when I encounter them today, when they cause those old memories from long ago to return to the forefront of my perception. I remember the thickened, heavenly mixture of peanut butter and syrup that only a grandmother would spoil a child with. I remember the strong, languid aroma of the hay as it awaited its fated trip to the belly of the cattle, waiting patiently in the barn, with me flopped across its soft brittleness carelessly. I remember the scraping of my teeth against the tough hide of a pear that had fallen to the ground from the pear tree that shaded my grandmother's garden. I remember that pear tree as being strong and vibrant, always giving the fruits of its labors selflessly and tirelessly. I'd like to think that her childhood was like that: innocent, carefree, and void of the encroachment of any strife that's wholly unnecessary for a child to bear.

Before I had even set foot through the open doorway of Room 350 in St. Mary's Hospital, I could see her, her upper body slightly pitched forward from the incline of her bed, the remnants of the family sparsely congregated about the room. As she lay there, her mouth agape, eyes gently shut, head sunken into the soft pillow, it was hard for me…hard for me to feel sadness, to feel anguish, to feel depression at the sight of her. It occurred to me as I stood there that such feelings would have existed merely for reasons of selfishness. I didn't want to see her go, I was saddened at her passing, and yet, as I looked on her face, I saw that all the pain, all the suffering, all the hours upon days, the days upon weeks, the weeks upon years of that hurt, cruelly heaped upon her by that which we call Life, was no longer there. She had a look of peace about her, and as I stood over her and placed my hand upon her still-warm forehead, I knew. I knew that there would be no more hurt, no more pain or suffering to be had on her part, and that was reason enough to be joyous, not in Death…but in Life. Perhaps for the first time in a long time, I realized that the Bad, the Good, it all goes bandaged-hand-in-hand, and no matter how unfair Life may seem at times, it all turns out fine in the end, because all that unfairness is never eternal.

In her life, my grandmother weathered many storms. Within the past ten years, she had suffered from a handful of heart-attacks, she had been blighted with breast cancer before she ultimately was cleansed of it, and she suffered from a series of strokes, the last of which left her paralyzed on the left side of her body. She suffered from the abominations of a familiarly faced evil that she steadfastly wrapped about her as a blanket in her twenties, holding onto the unrepentant thing through want of knowing little else to do, entrapping herself with a burden that she needn't have had to Don…an evil that ravaged her for nearly fifty years with lies of a snake and indignities drug over her and her fruits in the spirit of tragic meanness and for the sake of being evil, an evil that ultimately left her to rot when she was at her most vulnerable, only to watch her die then spread more lies and indignities as her Life was celebrated. She shouldn't have been pitted against such plights, yet she was, though that didn't define her. Long ago, that old pear tree began to decay and cease and also succumbed to the many storms that she had long weathered, unable to give forth its fruits as we recognize them in the literal sense. The decision didn't come easy for those that had to make it, but she was cut down, and let go...though still she gives to us, gives to us as being a part of what we are. I'd seen it all before, lived it before through her most beloved of trees: one moment, one decision…even now I wonder if she regrets it.

But not whether or not I regret it, because I don't. I chose not to watch her pass from this life, and instead have chosen to remember her as she was: that strong and vibrant, selfless and tireless spirit she had been in my childhood, not as the decaying husk that she became at the end. It all has come to an end.

She is my grandmother still, and the fruits of her labor shall live on in the memories and Life that she gave us.