Characters

“I used to come down here and look at all the characters.  Never thought I’d be one of them, though.  Characters, man.  Lotta characters.”

Savatage fans will recognize that from the intro to the tune, “Jesus Saves, “from the Streets CD.  I loved that disc.  “Believe” has come to mean so much to me and lots of Savatage fans. That story is for another time.

Today, we’re talking about characters – the ingredient that makes stories mean something.  I want to talk about a few of my favorite characters, and then some of the characters on Division‘s new CD, “Control Issues.”

Let me start with a few characters you may recognize, and I apologize in advance to the female readers, since these are all male characters in today’s blog.

First up:  Dexter Morgan.

Dexter is an absolute delight of a character.  In Jeff Lindsay‘s novels, he’s delightfully aloof, and he connects the worlds of human emotion and completely heartless killer. Dexter’s character is explored to perfection by Michael C. Hall on the Showtime TV series. Dexter is a serial killer, but he operates under a code to only kill those who deserve it.  He’s so good at passing as a good guy, that he’s a blood spatter analyst as his day job.  Every day he fakes a smile and walks among his friends in the Miami PD, only to commit murder when the sun goes down.

Secondly, let’s discuss Leslie Vernon.

Most of you don’t know Leslie, but I wish everyone did.  Leslie is the creation of Scott Glosserman, and is the centerpiece of the film, “Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon.”  Leslie (played by the charismatic Nathan Baesel) aspires to be the next great slasher, in the tradition of Jason Voorhees, Freddy Kruger and Michael Myers.  The film follows him in documentary style as he casts and sets the night that will create his legacy as the rising star among homicidal maniacs.

Thirdly, I love tragic heroes.  I love good guys with flaws (see Catwalk for an example), and one of the best tragic heroes in recent TV history has to be Detective Elliot Stabler. One of the co-stars in Dick Wolf’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, ” Elliot is a tough-as-nails former Marine always dedicated to getting the bad guy.  Elliot (portrayed with emotional range and tenacity by Christopher Meloni) is very, very close to the edge. The SVU series often has villains that viewers wish they could strangle, and Elliot represents that rage. He’s the embodiment of what we want to do to bad guys, but still within the bounds of the law.

“Control Issues” has its share of villains, many of whom are the story tellers.  In some ways, it can be a violent and sadistic set of stories.  Perhaps we’ll shift to the perspective of the hero in our next effort, but for now, we promise plenty of flawed, deviant, twisted behavior as the voice of the characters on this CD.

All the best,

nK