Help me Adapt One of my prompts

[nolan]

Okay,

So, since this has been less then a spectacular board in terms of workshopping things right now, I'm going to get the ball rolling.

So this is REALLY a test case.

I'm going to try to adapt one of my own prompts as a comic story.

So I'm going to start with the prompt.

I'll give people a couple days to throw ideas at me for this and offer a few base ideas of my own. Then I'll probbaly write a short outline and workshop that and get to actually writing the whole comic story.



PROMPT #17: The Nine Worthies

So, the idea is that these nine guys are the greatest defenders that Christendom could have. Even though, ironically, six of them aren't even Christian and one of them probably wouldn't have been a Christian either.

The Nine Worthies:

Hector (Pre-Christian Pagan)
Alexander the Great (Pre-Christian Pagan)
Julius Caesar (Pre-Christian Pagan)
Joshua (Pre-Christian Jew)
David (Pre-Christian Jew)
Judas Maccabaeus (Pre-Christian Jew)
King Arthur (cited as a Christian, but he could be written as a Pagan character who was later Christianized after he died)
Charlemange (Christian)
Godfrey of Bouillon (Christian)




So here are my EVIL Nine Worthies.

Possible members:

Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Jesus
Frederick II of Sicily
Ramesses II, possibly the Pharaoh of the Biblical Exodus
Saladin
Goliath
Pontius Pilate
Brutus
Jan Huss
Martin Luther






So here's my main idea for the world.

Time period is about 1580-1650ish.

The heretic Martin Luther had been burned at the stake and Christendom had remained unified (at least as an idea) in the future.

Technology is sort of half steampunk/half clockpunk.

The New World consists primarily of small trading forts and villages. The largest (European) cities are maybe a few thousand people.

The Aztecs successfully repelled three European invasions.

To defend against the Christian onslaught throughout the world, the two non-Christian superpowers (China and the Ottoman Empire) unite in an alliance. ANd they recruit the smaller powers together.

With the most recent attempt to overthrow the Aztecs repelled, the Nine most famous figures in Christendom appear to help Christendom in what will be its darkest hour.



So what do I do from here?
How do I avoid being like Rex Mundi (which ironically, this doesn't have much in common with besides a universal christendom) or League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?

[jayvee]

I wonder if you could legally pilfer DRACULA 2000's take on Judas, or twist it so that it fits this concept without stepping on any copyright toes.

[nolan]

That was the crappy movie with Gerard Butler right?

What was that take on Judas?

Actually, for this, I want to try and stay away from magic if I can. Well Harry Potter type magic. I'd rather concentrate on the people as men.

[davidaccampo]

Wait, I'm confused...is this a battle between the nine EVIL worthies and the Nine worthies...like a pseudo-historical "Challenge of the Superfriends"? Or are you just considering using the EVIL worthies as the defenders in order to paint Christendom in a certain light?

Either way, the setting doesn't do much for me without characters inserted into it. Are the Worthies the main characters? Are we meant to look at them as an ensemble cast? Or are the more like aloof champions, into which you will insert a protagonist who gets mixed up with their "mission"?

This seems interesting as a purely intellectual exercise, but I can see a lot of eye-rolling if you tried to put this out -- especially if you use this landscape to come down against christendom. Which is not to say you should or shouldn't do this...but if I felt that the objective became preachy, it would turn me off.

So let's start with the characters...How do you see each of them?

This reminds me of an exercise I did back in a lit class where I essentially put a bunch of American authors together in a room and wrote a one-act play about them. It was fun, but this case, that's kind of how I'd imagine you should start. Plot aside -- put all these characters in a room together and allow yourself to write them, in character, all talking about something. If you're blocked because it's such a large group and a tough situation, use something simple.

Example: 8 of the Nine worthies have just stumbled across the dead body of Julius Caesar, their fellow worthy.

Now...write.

---

I'm not saying this is your story -- but you're a high concept guy and the downside of that is that you've come up with an elaborate setting, but...I can't see the story until I know how each of the nine worthies is going to be characterized by you. If you were to write two pages of them examining the body of Caesar, I imagine each of their personalities would be forced into the light. Then, once we see how they each react, we would also see how they might react to a posed threat against them.

I say have fun with it at first, and the story in your setting will emerge.

[jayvee]

Yes, it was an extraordinarily crappy movie... But it had a rock solid premise.

How you fuck up a rock solid premise, I'll never know... But they did.

Anyway, in it, Judas Iscariot was Dracula. It was his curse for betraying Jesus and, throughout the movie, Judas was portrayed as angry and bitter, killing people and sucking their blood not because he needed it to survive but because they were God's children. Several times he struggled with the idea that everything is God's will, his betrayal of Jesus was God's will, God made him do it as part of his Plan so why was he being punished for it? He was just doing what God made him.

They explained vampires' loathing of the cross as Judas' intense hatred of God, and their susceptibility to silver as a weakness because Judas was paid by the Romans in silver. I think there was a pretty tense scene (probably the only one in that movie) where Judas tried to hang himself (I think that's how the original Judas died) but God wouldn't let him. Instead, he hung from sun-down to sun-up and then that's the only time God would let him out; he wouldn't let him see the light of day again.

[nolan]

jayvee said:

Yes, it was an extraordinarily crappy movie... But it had a rock solid premise.

How you fuck up a rock solid premise, I'll never know... But they did.

Anyway, in it, Judas Iscariot was Dracula. It was his curse for betraying Jesus and, throughout the movie, Judas was portrayed as angry and bitter, killing people and sucking their blood not because he needed it to survive but because they were God's children. Several times he struggled with the idea that everything is God's will, his betrayal of Jesus was God's will, God made him do it as part of his Plan so why was he being punished for it? He was just doing what God made him.

They explained vampires' loathing of the cross as Judas' intense hatred of God, and their susceptibility to silver as a weakness because Judas was paid by the Romans in silver. I think there was a pretty tense scene (probably the only one in that movie) where Judas tried to hang himself (I think that's how the original Judas died) but God wouldn't let him. Instead, he hung from sun-down to sun-up and then that's the only time God would let him out; he wouldn't let him see the light of day again.

David, I'll address your post later.

Honestly, I'm just giving this workshopping thing a try for a story that I have no idea if I could ever pull off.

How you fuck up a solid premise--cast Gerard Butler in the lead He's proven that his acting is as bad as his singing. I mean who the hell cast him in Phantom of the Opera, did they listen to him sing? He's completely tone deaf.

Hmmmmm...interesting idea.

It begs the question of whether Judas should even be blamed if God wanted him to do it.