House of Cards ramblings
It's been pretty much exactly four years since I finished House of Cards, and it's still a work in progress. I'm still occasionally busy re-reading it, editing it, deleting bits that are superfluous/gratuitous, and rewriting the odd sliver here and there.
I re-read HoC again over the Bank Holiday weekend. It'd been a long while. And along with the inevitable bout of correcting/editing/tweaking that was going on, I wondered whether there was ever going to be a point when the story would be 'finished'. I mean, a version that would be as complete as I could get it and would never go through the editing process again. And I don't know if it will get to that point any time soon. When I first posted it to FF.net it was pretty much a draft that I hadn't changed from the first moment it was put down on paper (or laptop screen).
There's a lot I still want to say about HoC. I left so many threads dangling because it would've taken me an age to pick them all up, and because spelling them out would've been an exercise in pedantry that most would've found boring. So I left some things open to interpretation, and many of the questions - particularly at the end - unanswered. But here's just a few points I wanted to pick up, just because the recent re-read has made them fresh in mind, and just because I'm a writer and we're generally self-indulgent creatures (and just because there may be some of you out there who are genuinely interested).
So if you want HoC to be (slightly) de-mystified, read on.
#1 - First point - and this was *so* important to this universe, but I couldn't bear to make it known because I didn't think it would've made the story 'real' if all of the characters had known it. Irene Adler was the one who killed Senator Kelly and started off the whole anti-mutant regime (cf Uncanny X-Men #142). She, in essence, started off the whole Days of Future Past timeline. That was her sin, and that's what she spent the duration of the story doing penance for. Why did she do it? I don't think even she knows. I haven't been able to pick her brain on that point. Gambit found out the truth about what she did, and wasn't happy about it (see Threads #8).
Honestly, I really geeked out writing Irene. I mean, she was one of the most important characters in HoC, if not the most important, and I tried to make her an ambiguous one, because really her motives are shrouded to everyone but her. Rogue realises, for just a split second (in the chapter 'Revelations'), that she has no idea whether Irene is really her friend or her enemy - because Irene could tell her to do anything for any reason, and she wouldn't know whether it really was for the greater good, or actually for Irene's own ulterior motives. And that was an undercurrent that was really important to me and that I wanted to play up but didn't.
I had the idea that the three main (or should I say, pivotal) characters - Rogue, Gambit, Rachel - would each be pawns in a whole bigger picture that neither of them really understood, being pushed around by the 'master manipulators' who make things happen. Rachel had Ahab, Gambit had Essex, Rogue had Irene. I wouldn't say Mystique, because what she knew was based on what Irene told her, and as Irene admitted, she never told Raven the full truth. Irene was always meant to be the far more sinister character of the two.
#2 - Sinister. Gambit. Oh, how I do love those two. The story is... No, I can't tell the story, because that was going to come up in the hypothetical sequel, but let's just say that Gambit was pretty much always in Sinny's pocket. Sinister did his lobotomy. Gambit owed him one. He stuck around and did a few jobs for Essex, and then he stuck around a bit longer because - well, why not? Just cos. The Morlock Massacre never figured into this Gambit's backstory. Don't ask me why, it just didn't. Gambit got up to a lot worse, to be honest. Then Sinny sent him to infiltrate the X-Men. He wanted all the X-Men, but most of all he wanted Rachel. The mansion went up in flames and most of his potential subjects were killed. (So, he thought was Rachel, until she later resurfaced as a Hound.) Gambit is whisked away, and the rest is history.
BTW, Essex didn't only want Rachel because she was daughter of Scott Summers and Jean Grey, but no one knows that, not even Remy, and that was something that was going to come up in said hypothetical sequel.
Yeah, and Essex is pretty much to Gambit what Mystique is to Rogue. In a way, it's real affection that he feels for Remy. Just like Raven (perversely) loves Rogue.
#3 - Rachel is a main character, but she only turns up in the last couple of chapters. Well, I'm selfish. I like my Remy and Rogue. But seriously. Rachel is *the* pivotal character in the story/timeline, only her story was already told in the comics and if I retold it all over again, it would be kind of redundant. Rogue and Gambit's purpose was pretty much just to set her free and let her take the reins from there, but where she led those reins was going to be reserved for hypothetical sequel anyway.
(For those not in the know - Rachel helps divert the killing of Senator Kelly in the 616 universe. She manages to end Sentinal rule somewhere down the line. She travels to 616 and does a whole bunch of things. She becomes Mother Askani and brings up a young Nathan Summers. She creates Stryfe. She's there at the end of Time with Cable. So yeah. She has a pretty important role to play in the grand scheme of things.)
#4 - The NPCs/OCs/minor characters. Okay, *most* of the minor characters weren't original ones. They were borrowed from the comics.
Gambit's nameless contact was partly influenced by a very minor 616 character called Clarity who was so cool I had to use him. He was this guy who used to help Cable and was basically able to absorb and analyse data from everything around him. The 616 Clarity was kind of screwed up, emaciated, and on a permanent information overload, but I thought, wouldn't it be cool if Remy had this quirky, invisible sidekick, whose mutant power was to be this huge intel machine that could get the lowdown on practically everything he put his mind to???? Remy could really do with someone like that. And I kind of put some of that into the character of Louis too (who *was* an OC), although I left it ambiguous as to whether he was a mutant or not. I don't think he was.
Rita was Ricochet Rita from 616, who would later become the character Spiral. And her husband, Murray, was Murray Reese of the Reavers (for no reason other than that his was the first name I picked out of the Marvel encyclopaedia. Yes, I'm a geek).
Guess was another OC. Yeah, another telepath... kind of boring, but I liked the idea that he was creepy enough to rip out people's memories and record every single one of them into this whole database he was collecting.
Oh, and Caliban does get kidnapped by Ahab and turned into a Hound. ;)
Ok, I think that's it for now. Any questions? Anything been really bugging anyone? Let me know and I'll try to answer...
I re-read HoC again over the Bank Holiday weekend. It'd been a long while. And along with the inevitable bout of correcting/editing/tweaking that was going on, I wondered whether there was ever going to be a point when the story would be 'finished'. I mean, a version that would be as complete as I could get it and would never go through the editing process again. And I don't know if it will get to that point any time soon. When I first posted it to FF.net it was pretty much a draft that I hadn't changed from the first moment it was put down on paper (or laptop screen).
There's a lot I still want to say about HoC. I left so many threads dangling because it would've taken me an age to pick them all up, and because spelling them out would've been an exercise in pedantry that most would've found boring. So I left some things open to interpretation, and many of the questions - particularly at the end - unanswered. But here's just a few points I wanted to pick up, just because the recent re-read has made them fresh in mind, and just because I'm a writer and we're generally self-indulgent creatures (and just because there may be some of you out there who are genuinely interested).
So if you want HoC to be (slightly) de-mystified, read on.
#1 - First point - and this was *so* important to this universe, but I couldn't bear to make it known because I didn't think it would've made the story 'real' if all of the characters had known it. Irene Adler was the one who killed Senator Kelly and started off the whole anti-mutant regime (cf Uncanny X-Men #142). She, in essence, started off the whole Days of Future Past timeline. That was her sin, and that's what she spent the duration of the story doing penance for. Why did she do it? I don't think even she knows. I haven't been able to pick her brain on that point. Gambit found out the truth about what she did, and wasn't happy about it (see Threads #8).
Honestly, I really geeked out writing Irene. I mean, she was one of the most important characters in HoC, if not the most important, and I tried to make her an ambiguous one, because really her motives are shrouded to everyone but her. Rogue realises, for just a split second (in the chapter 'Revelations'), that she has no idea whether Irene is really her friend or her enemy - because Irene could tell her to do anything for any reason, and she wouldn't know whether it really was for the greater good, or actually for Irene's own ulterior motives. And that was an undercurrent that was really important to me and that I wanted to play up but didn't.
I had the idea that the three main (or should I say, pivotal) characters - Rogue, Gambit, Rachel - would each be pawns in a whole bigger picture that neither of them really understood, being pushed around by the 'master manipulators' who make things happen. Rachel had Ahab, Gambit had Essex, Rogue had Irene. I wouldn't say Mystique, because what she knew was based on what Irene told her, and as Irene admitted, she never told Raven the full truth. Irene was always meant to be the far more sinister character of the two.
#2 - Sinister. Gambit. Oh, how I do love those two. The story is... No, I can't tell the story, because that was going to come up in the hypothetical sequel, but let's just say that Gambit was pretty much always in Sinny's pocket. Sinister did his lobotomy. Gambit owed him one. He stuck around and did a few jobs for Essex, and then he stuck around a bit longer because - well, why not? Just cos. The Morlock Massacre never figured into this Gambit's backstory. Don't ask me why, it just didn't. Gambit got up to a lot worse, to be honest. Then Sinny sent him to infiltrate the X-Men. He wanted all the X-Men, but most of all he wanted Rachel. The mansion went up in flames and most of his potential subjects were killed. (So, he thought was Rachel, until she later resurfaced as a Hound.) Gambit is whisked away, and the rest is history.
BTW, Essex didn't only want Rachel because she was daughter of Scott Summers and Jean Grey, but no one knows that, not even Remy, and that was something that was going to come up in said hypothetical sequel.
Yeah, and Essex is pretty much to Gambit what Mystique is to Rogue. In a way, it's real affection that he feels for Remy. Just like Raven (perversely) loves Rogue.
#3 - Rachel is a main character, but she only turns up in the last couple of chapters. Well, I'm selfish. I like my Remy and Rogue. But seriously. Rachel is *the* pivotal character in the story/timeline, only her story was already told in the comics and if I retold it all over again, it would be kind of redundant. Rogue and Gambit's purpose was pretty much just to set her free and let her take the reins from there, but where she led those reins was going to be reserved for hypothetical sequel anyway.
(For those not in the know - Rachel helps divert the killing of Senator Kelly in the 616 universe. She manages to end Sentinal rule somewhere down the line. She travels to 616 and does a whole bunch of things. She becomes Mother Askani and brings up a young Nathan Summers. She creates Stryfe. She's there at the end of Time with Cable. So yeah. She has a pretty important role to play in the grand scheme of things.)
#4 - The NPCs/OCs/minor characters. Okay, *most* of the minor characters weren't original ones. They were borrowed from the comics.
Gambit's nameless contact was partly influenced by a very minor 616 character called Clarity who was so cool I had to use him. He was this guy who used to help Cable and was basically able to absorb and analyse data from everything around him. The 616 Clarity was kind of screwed up, emaciated, and on a permanent information overload, but I thought, wouldn't it be cool if Remy had this quirky, invisible sidekick, whose mutant power was to be this huge intel machine that could get the lowdown on practically everything he put his mind to???? Remy could really do with someone like that. And I kind of put some of that into the character of Louis too (who *was* an OC), although I left it ambiguous as to whether he was a mutant or not. I don't think he was.
Rita was Ricochet Rita from 616, who would later become the character Spiral. And her husband, Murray, was Murray Reese of the Reavers (for no reason other than that his was the first name I picked out of the Marvel encyclopaedia. Yes, I'm a geek).
Guess was another OC. Yeah, another telepath... kind of boring, but I liked the idea that he was creepy enough to rip out people's memories and record every single one of them into this whole database he was collecting.
Oh, and Caliban does get kidnapped by Ahab and turned into a Hound. ;)
Ok, I think that's it for now. Any questions? Anything been really bugging anyone? Let me know and I'll try to answer...