Mothers of Monsters

 

Welcome back! Today we talk about the found footage film, Mothers of Monsters  

Back when I ran the Burning Wheel game "The Undertow" with Lena, I came up with the darkest NPC I may ever come up with: Krakeru. Krakeru was the escaped "stud" of a crazed elf cult, tortured and bred to try and create an Anti-Christ type figure, who would be used to summon the eldritch Nameless, thus destroying the world. Krakeru was wrong, in every sense of the word. He took delight in pain in a way that was part innocence and malice and trauma. Right when you thought you had him in a corner he would flip the conversation into something that revealed just how broken a person he was. He was a rapist, a murderer, a torturer, and a channeler of the blackest of sorceries, repeating every awful thing ever done to him with a flair and creativity that spoke of owning the evil, not just repeating it. Krakeru was a constant topic between Lena and me. One afternoon, she turned to me and stated, like she was ordering a burger: "Well, you know you like Krakeru.' You identify with him. Strongly."

And I had absolutely no other recourse than to shrug and admit it. 

Lena would have known I was lying anyways. Hell, anyone who's read this blog would have known I was lying. One of the things that most GMs don't cop to is that their NPCs are frequently an extension of them. If you make a good dude, you are projecting what you think of as socially acceptable and good. You are making a value claim by making a good NPC. But the same goes double for the evil NPCs. What you think is evil and might be shareable is a confession. Always.

So when I say that when I saw Jacob's eyes in the opening minutes of this movie, and found a part of me was laughing... take a second and absorb that.

The rest of the movie was more or less the process I had taken with this part of me, years ago... and it had about the same results.

In the movie, Abbey (the mom) wires her house with cameras, mirroring her son's camera use. When faced with something she couldn't control, she did what her son did: make an environment where she felt she was on top. There's a dark humor to that. "My son may be a psychopath", but ultimately the only thing really differentiating Abbey and Jacob is he's better at the game than she is. Yes, Abbey is afraid, but there's a serious case to be made that Jacob is even more scared. If he can't feel anything but rage and fear... what else is there for him to do than inflict it on others? Sit in ambiguity?

Please. 

Most haters of TLJ still think Luke tried to kill his nephew. People suck at ambiguity.

Jacob ain't that different from the rest of us. Deal with it.

Abbey's reaction is fundamentally the same as Jacob's, she just has more tools before she goes down the rabbit hole. And don't you think for one second any of us are any different.

Oh, that part of me was cackling when the cameras were found. He found every frame of this movie funny. He found the electricity delicious, and he didn't believe the ending video. At all. "HE WON!" that part of me crowed. "Ha! See? My way works." "There is no way anyone that good at faking emotion was being sincere there. No. Fucking. Way."

And that had me floored for a second. I mean, I have gotten comfortable with  but I bounced back a lot faster than I thought I would. "If this is what you think is winning, I hope I lose, forever." That, of course, hit a nerve. "You don't mean that! You can't! I won, that's why I'm still here."

"No, you're still here because I realized that, if I give you enough time, you will become me, not the other way around. Time is on my side. Go ahead. Test it. Push. The blood you will get out of me will just change you, buddy. I know that now, kiddo. Your move. I'm always here, when you're ready to come home. I still love you."

For once, that asshole shut up.

And, suddenly, I realized that I could feel Sam smiling. And I knew I had actually won. Possibly for the first time in my life. And all it took was a mom looking a rope and considering hanging herself. Life's strange.

If we do meet again, I do not blame you. It is no easy road.