That red wire

In consideration of the previous story I was contemplating a few things. You see a bright person in the 80’s came to the conclusion that any TV series needs a red wire. It was all good in the 70’s, but the stories were almost made to formula. Intro-hero-setback-optional setback 2-clues-conclusion. And many series had a similar construct. So this bright person set a red wire throughout the story which would find conclusion around the finale of the season. It was a bright idea and it has been around for decades. It has various names, but it remained a red wire. So as I am contemplating the journey for Nikolaos the red wire comes to mind. At which point I also recalled season 6 of Dr. Who (that series with the pretty redhead and a time traveller). In one episode (Demon’s run) by Steven Moffat we get introduced to a line. “Demons run when a good man goes to war” In this I considered that line, but something else as well. You see organised crime has one thing in common with corrupt politicians. It is unfathomable loss. When you hold the corrupt politician to account by killing his or her children and grand children, they will suddenly be about the innocent people. They never cared when they were filling their pockets, but they forgot about that. So if the power of Nikolaos is not merely his ancestry, what if he had to align Tartarus? What if his job is to find the champions to do his bidding, how powerful would the person be that was robbed again and again? What happens when his vengeance, the everlasting executing of the children and grandchildren that robbed him again and again in an arena whilst the transgressors watch to see their children being slaughtered and unable to do anything about it? What level of loyalty will Nikolaos get from the person he enabled to get even with the demons who robbed and haunted him? And the red wire is not merely that, it was to create the location, to create the prisons from which the people watch their children die, the seats where the lesser demons are entertained and the list goes on. What if the arch-demon is not created from evil, but from good?

What could the lesson of frustration do when it gets pushed beyond limits? You see, this is not some raving, some of this comes from Marcus Aurelius, who gives us “The art of tempering your fury with an infuriating existential truth”, it is not about the fury we get from some, but from those who place themselves ABOVE the law. Like the corrupt, and that sets a larger piece in motion. “he considered what makes life worth living and instructed himself: “Tone your wants and tastes low down enough, and make much of negatives, and of mere daylight and the skies.” He spared himself the additional self-inflicted suffering of outrage at how his body failed him”, but this goes beyond the setting of body and soul, it comes from the setting that those who intentionally harm ones body and soul, ones sanity will push for larger dangers, the danger that the man does not break, but gives up and gives in to an unfathomable level of insanity killing their children again and again, a never ending rage. If we consider that evil never had that, it is fuelled by mere greed, those who they go after will have been good (to some degree) it could fuel a much larger rage than anyone has ever considered. I believe it is one of the settings why we anger over treason, treason against the values we embraced for a life time. And the path to impose an enduring unfathomable loss is reached. 

You see Machiavelli gives us “Nothing makes a republic so stable and strong as organising it in such a way that the agitation of the hatreds which excite it has a means of expressing itself provided for by the laws”, stability stops or lessens treason, but the greed driven will always find a path that tells them that it is acceptable what they do, as such in that setting the transgressions against a good man are intolerable and seen beyond what any fury would give us. It is the one lesson that ends the sanity of the corrupt person, the corrupt politician is hit even harder as he was seen representing the state and as such the fury intensifies. So in that setting we see any good man become infuriating beyond what any demon could fathom making any good man the most dangerous of arch-demons. And let’s be clear, if there is a hell and it is ruled by an angel, would that angel in its foundation not fear the arch demon? If Tartarus is set on a different premise, would such an arch demon not an asset? 

To get there we cannot have a simple 2 or 3 episode finale, it needs to be fuelled by a red wire throughout the season. Its lesson reverberating throughout the season as the Olympians teach Nikolaos why mankind was so dangerous. We see it now with political ploys, interest groups trivialising pollution, media siding with the advertiser and we can call many more examples, but the people are the ones in the middle, so when they get angry that nation stops. We have seen it in many places. Yet consider a fictive example in the US, what do you think happens when 250,000,000 people have had enough? Do you think this is impossible when the US collapses? Do you think the Wall Street executive that hesitates to run for his (or her) life has any chance to get out alive? In a nation where its army can turn on that nation becomes the most volatile of nations, and when a person is perceived as the good man, when he calls for war, do you think that will end nicely? Unfathomable loss can be seen in many ways, but it is never seen from the point of the corrupt. Consider what they hold dear and consider what they fear. Treason is the most explosive of powder kegs and when we see that, we see the beginning of a red wire, when that is set in motion we merely need to check the list of all the elements required to make the story complete. So as I see an arena with an audience and in the honor box we see the parents of the children getting slaughtered again and again, all screaming for mercy, for their innocent children all whilst the audience cheers, another life cut down and the rage of the good man who was transgressed upon ready to kill again and again and again. To get to that stage we need to set the elements and that is still some achievement, but Marcus Aurelius is there to temper the idea and that is also the best ammunition to use. You see, Marcus Aurelius gives us “by gently encouraging them to think the same way” yet that too becomes a weapon, especially when the good man has nothing left, robbed by the corrupt and that becomes fuel to the fire. Because the good man will never accept corruption as a vice and therefor corruption fuels as corruption does and in this both mercy and innocence are the first victims in this internal war. Corruption and treason have a much larger role to play and that becomes part of the red wire.