{"id":45205,"date":"2019-02-08T13:46:40","date_gmt":"2019-02-08T18:46:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=45205"},"modified":"2019-02-08T13:46:40","modified_gmt":"2019-02-08T18:46:40","slug":"lbcf-no-222-unlikable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/02\/08\/lbcf-no-222-unlikable\/","title":{"rendered":"LBCF, No. 222: ‘Unlikable’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Originally posted September 18, 2009.<\/em><\/p>\n

You can read this entire series, for free, via the convenient\u00a0Left Behind Index<\/a>. The ebook collection\u00a0The Anti-Christ Handbook: Volume 1<\/a>, is available on Amazon for just $2.99. The Masculine Toilet salesman looked nervous testifying before Congress.\u00a0<\/em>Volume 2 of The Anti-Christ Handbook<\/a>, completing all the posts on the first Left Behind book, is also now available. Volume 3 is coming soon(ish).<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Tribulation Force,<\/em>\u00a0pp. 91-95<\/strong><\/p>\n

We should take a moment here at the beginning of Chapter 5 to note something else we\u2019re not seeing: chaos, anarchy, lawlessness, and depravity.<\/p>\n

The authors told us this was to be expected in the world of\u00a0Tribulation Force<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 a world without any Real, True Christians. Those RTCs were whisked away, taking with them every vestige of salt and light, taking with them the very presence of the Holy Spirit indwelling them. The world has become something even worse than Sodom without five righteous men, it has become a world without the Spirit of God. (It\u2019s a weirdly contra-biblical claim, but this seems to be LaHaye\u2019s idea \u2014 that God is present in this world only to the extent that the Holy Spirit is present within RTCs. Take away those godly people and you take away every trace of God.)<\/p>\n

The authors briefly hinted at what that ought to mean in the context of their story. In the early aftermath of the Event, they mentioned a crime wave. The Steele\u2019s home was burglarized by Jimmy Bats<\/a> and the beleaguered police told Rayford they were overwhelmed as this newly godless nation ran amok.<\/p>\n

But then all of that just kind of stopped. No more crime or looting or savage attacks from roving bands of violent hoodlums unchecked by conscience or divine grace. Everything went back to normal.<\/p>\n

Better than normal, really, considering how much work and disciplined cooperation must have gone into repairing all the damage from the Event \u2014 getting all of the infrastructure and machinery of daily life up and going again. It seems almost miraculous, really.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m fairly sure this wasn\u2019t intentional \u2014 that the authors didn\u2019t\u00a0mean<\/em>\u00a0to present the world of\u00a0Tribulation Force<\/em>\u00a0as the secular, post-RTC utopia it seems to be. I think they\u2019re actually just lazy. Sustaining a premise takes thought, effort and attention, and those are all in short supply in this slap-dash first draft of a novel. Jerry Jenkins couldn\u2019t be bothered to think about what the radically altered landscape of his story would entail, so he very quickly drifted back to default descriptions of a familiar world in which no airport, restaurant, suburban street or even local church appears affected by the removal of all of the world\u2019s RTCs.<\/p>\n

So I don\u2019t think the astonishingly rapid return to normalcy post-Event was really something they thought about or that they\u00a0meant<\/em>\u00a0anything by it. I think it\u2019s just an accident of Very Bad Writing.<\/p>\n

If we had the chance to sit down with the authors and ask them, I think they\u2019d insist that a world without RTCs or the Holy Spirit would be utterly unlike the orderly, mundane place they\u2019ve set forth in this book. I think they\u2019d describe a depraved scene like something out of a Jack Chick tract, and I think they\u2019d further explain that this is the sort of godless, lawless, bestial world they meant to convey in the pages of\u00a0Tribulation Force<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Except they didn\u2019t do that in their book. Here they presented instead a post-Event world that is indistinguishable from their version of the pre-Event world. The unintentional implication \u2014 found on every mundane page describing the characters\u2019 unperturbed daily routines \u2014 is that the presence of a billion RTCs in this world really doesn\u2019t make\u00a0any<\/em>\u00a0difference one way or another.<\/p>\n

This is a very strange message for these authors to be communicating, but it comes through loud and clear. As I said, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s an intentional message, but there it is.<\/p>\n

A second unintentional message recurs throughout these books, something which also presents itself as Very Bad Writing, but in this case I think that\u2019s the symptom, not the disease. I\u2019m referring to the authors\u2019 habit of reversing the usual shorthand signals most writers employ to prompt readers to like or dislike particular characters. Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins frequently get these backwards without seeming to realize it.<\/p>\n

In discussing some of the other flaws in these books we\u2019ve noted instances where Bad Writing seems to emerge from the authors\u2019 Bad Theology, or sometimes just from the authors themselves being Bad People. But I\u2019m not talking about theology or morality here, I\u2019m talking about\u00a0likability<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 which is often related, but not the same thing.<\/p>\n

What we have in these novels is a massive body of evidence that the authors simply don\u2019t\u00a0understand\u00a0what makes most people like or dislike another person. Again and again we see Buck and Rayford behave in ways that range from the merely unappealing to the outright appalling, and in nearly every such instance the authors seem to have intended this behavior to persuade readers to be fond of these two jackasses.<\/p>\n

I tried for a while to account for this bizarre characterization as some kind of attempt to present them as anti-heroes, or flawed heroes, or even just as rough-edged but lovable cads (like, say, Jimmy McNulty on\u00a0The Wire<\/em>). But such readings weren\u2019t supportable or sustainable. That\u2019s not what we have here.<\/p>\n

What we have here is a compendium of reasons large and small for readers to detest Buck and Rayford, all set before us by wide-eyed authors who point to this very behavior and, grinning, say, \u201cAren\u2019t they the\u00a0coolest?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

No. No they\u2019re not.<\/p>\n

This gap is one of the main reasons these books are unreadable \u2014 the gap between how readers are forced to perceive the main characters and how the authors\u00a0intended<\/em>\u00a0them to be perceived, or how the authors themselves perceive them. That chasm is so vast that one despairs of a common language.<\/p>\n

We could go back to review prior examples of this \u2014 Buck\u2019s juvenile misogyny toward Verna, Rayford\u2019s pride in his off-putting obnoxiousness, both characters\u2019 overweening sense of entitlement \u2014 but there are more than enough examples ahead of us. Such as here in the section of the book we\u2019re considering today.<\/p>\n

We left Buck in a limo headed toward cake or death, dimly fearing that the global despot and embodiment of evil he\u2019s about to meet with might be planning something unkind:<\/p>\n

Buck began to feel more confident that he wasn\u2019t in mortal danger. Too many people had been involved in getting him from Chicago to New York and now to midtown. On the other hand, if Nicolae Carpathia could get away with murder in front of more than a dozen eyewitnesses, he could certainly eliminate one magazine writer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Buck seems to have forgotten that Nicolae already\u00a0has<\/em>\u00a0eliminated one magazine writer. Remember Eric Miller\u2019s ferry ride? Buck\u2019s worry that he might be in danger before his meeting with the Antichrist shows us that he doesn\u2019t really understand what that meeting is about. This is the Find Out If Buck Knows Too Much meeting. You\u2019re never in danger of being killed\u00a0before<\/em>\u00a0such a meeting, but you won\u2019t get out of it alive unless you\u2019re able to convince the evil mastermind that you don\u2019t Know Too Much, even if you actually do.\u00a0 That\u2019s why it\u2019s best to head into such a meeting with a plan that goes beyond simply recognizing, vaguely that one ought to have \u201csome sort of plan \u2026 that sort of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The limo pulls up to \u201cthe exclusive Manhattan Yacht Club,\u201d reimagined for the purposes of our story here as an ultra-swanky enclave for the mega-rich \u2014 a small piece of the Hamptons in downtown New York. The silent bodyguard from the limo leads Buck into the posh restaurant, \u201cpast a long line of patrons waiting for tables\u201d directly to the maitre d\u2019. More of the same business we saw at the airport, where Buck was allowed to board early and seated in Firster-than-First Class.<\/p>\n

\u201cBuck would have felt right at home in the Yacht Club,\u201d we\u2019re told, were it not for the presence of his hulking guide. Throughout this chapter, Jenkins takes pains to show us how relaxed and unperturbed by this setting Buck is. And we, the readers, are meant to be deeply impressed.<\/p>\n

This is the sort of thing I was trying to describe above. Jenkins lays on the jet-set sophisticate details \u2014<\/p>\n

\u201cHow long will you be in town?\u201d Buck asked, accepting a menu and allowing the waiter to drape a linen napkin on his lap.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What he\u2019s shooting for, I think, is the effect of \u201cBuck Williams is an impressive guy.\u201d But he winds up, instead, with something more like \u201cimpressing others is important to Buck,\u201d or, even worse, \u201cBuck is terribly impressed with himself.\u201d Throughout the restaurant interlude, Jenkins is desperately trying to get us to admire Buck, but it all produces the opposite reaction.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Buck Williams is, basically, Ellis from \u201cDie Hard.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The effect is like being out to dinner with the sort of egomaniac who makes a big show of paying with his Black Platinum Elite card while complaining that the port is an inferior vintage (because, yeah, he ordered\u00a0port<\/em>), not as good as what he has at home and probably not even from the Douro Valley, where, by the way, he can recommend a splendid little restaurant. I have little personal experience with such appalling dinner companions, but I\u2019m familiar with the scene from having watched it in dozens of movies and read about it in dozens of books. It\u2019s a stock scene, meant to convey \u2014 often unsubtly \u2014 that we\u2019re not supposed to like this show-off, that we should regard him as an unlikable jerk. While such stock scenes are a clich\u00e9, they work as a kind of short-hand vocabulary \u2014 they communicate what they are intended to communicate. Jenkins seems wholly unfamiliar with this established vocabulary, applying its terms here to Buck \u2014 portraying him as the ultimate Wrong Other Guy in a hackneyed rom-com \u2014 while expecting us to find Buck more likable because of it.<\/p>\n

If your setting is an \u201cexclusive\u201d yacht club, a playground for wealthy elites, and you want your readers to\u00a0like<\/em>\u00a0your hero, then you need to show that he or she\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0\u201cfeel right at home\u201d in such a place. There are some exceptions, some few likable heroes who might feel right at home: Nick and Nora Charles, Tony Stark, James Bond, the gang from\u00a0Leverage<\/em>,\u00a0I suppose (although their motive for being there \u2014 casing the joint \u2014 probably means they shouldn\u2019t count).<\/p>\n

There are probably other examples, too, but the list is short. Far, far shorter than the list of heroes who would find the club\u2019s ostentatious indulgence and exclusiveness off-putting and unsettling. This is true for most heroes because it is true for most readers \u2014 for most\u00a0humans<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had the misfortune on occasion to stumble into such settings myself and was always keenly aware that I was anything but \u201cright at home.\u201d Such places seem claustrophobic and a little mad, impossible quite to reconcile with everywhere else. You feel an urgent need for fresher air, for a lungful of perspective, maybe a whip of cords. You tug at your collar and finish your business so you can return to reality as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n

This is almost always what a fictional protagonist is thinking too. When they seem too at ease in such settings they become suspect. When they boast of feeling right at home, they become odious. Despite their intentions, this is how the authors are\u00a0instructing<\/em>\u00a0us here to respond to Buck.<\/p>\n

What I\u2019m trying to get at here isn\u2019t economic \u2014 not\u00a0class<\/em>\u00a0conflict, but rather the kind of moral intuition that precedes any such choosing of sides. One of my favorite essays, George Orwell\u2019s \u201cCharles Dickens<\/a>,\u201d describes this precisely in discussing Dickens\u2019 \u201cquasi-instinctive siding with the oppressed against the oppressors. As a matter of course he is on the side of the underdog, always and everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than any specific instance or even the accumulation of myriad such instances, it\u2019s this choosing of sides that Jenkins always gets wrong. He, and therefore his characters Buck and Rayford, instinctively side with the oppressors against the oppressed, with the powerful against the powerless, with the exclusive against the excluded. The heroes\u2019 religious conversions were just additional examples of this same choosing sides writ large.<\/p>\n

That makes our heroes unlikable to begin with, but then Jenkins compounds the problem with the insulting assumption that readers must share this instinctive preference for the haves over the have-nots and for the most-exclusive, most-expensive privileges of the privileged. Here at the Manhattan Yacht Club, as in the previous chapter where Buck luxuriated in the jealous stares of the other airline passengers, it\u2019s clear that Buck always feels right at home on the side of the overlords and not the underdogs. And because the overlords are so much more impressive, Jenkins assumes that we will therefore be impressed with Buck.<\/p>\n

But as desperate as they are to be impressive, it\u2019s just not possible for readers to\u00a0be<\/em>\u00a0impressed with the toadying instincts of Buck and Rayford, Jenkins and LaHaye. The best one can do, instead, is to feel a measure of pity for four characters so earnestly desiring to be liked but so confused about what might make them likable \u2014 so intent on being admired, but so utterly clueless as to what is admirable.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45205\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}