Building a Better Monster

Invariably, we get questions along the lines of “Okay, I get all the violence stuff—but what if he’s bigger-faster-stronger or [your favorite celebrity masher here] or has a knife-stick-gun-three guns?”

That’s a great question.  Or it would be if that’s what they really meant.  More often than not people build a monster in their head around a single overarching fear…  And that fear is—

Not to be revealed until the end.

In the meantime, let’s take a look at some specifics:

When people look at a larger, stronger man what they’re really registering is his potential ability to generate power.  He could pick you up and throw you across the room, right?  Heck, he could probably kill you with a refrigerator if you tried to run away.  What they ignore is that though he may have more human tissue than you, he’s still made of meat.  And meat can be butchered.

Fast and skilled fall into the same category—the desire for a duel.  This typically comes from people who are worried about “getting in”.  This is particularly funny as I’ve never seen a prison murder where the participants had any difficulty getting in on each other; I’m sure this idea would make serial killers shrug as well.  In short, professionals who use violence in their day-to-day are conspicuously unconcerned with getting in.  And so should you be.

But what if he’s armed?  Well, if I have a knife and he has a knife, I stab the knife, right?  Of course not.  So why the hell does this make a difference if he has a tool and I’m using fists and boots?  It just means you’ll beat him to nonfunctional instead of shooting or stabbing him to nonfunctional.

Ah, but now we’re getting to the super-secret fear that is hidden at the core of the issue—these questions are all saying:

“I’m afraid he has the intent to do what I won’t.”

Everyone builds a better monster around the idea of superior intent.  The bigger-faster-stronger smokescreen is just worry that he’s turned up willing to deliver a serious beating that ends in a brutal curbing while you’re just there to look hard or have a manly slap-fight.  You know, the kind where no one really gets hurt.

The tool, though, now that’s different.  When he pulls out a labor-saving device whose sole purpose is to rend meat and break bones, well now he’s showing superior intent—intent you’re worried you can’t match.  If you’re just there to posture and look the part—if you’re just there for a duel to teach someone a lesson, then what the hell is he up to with that man-mangler?  We all know the answer to that.  Everyone recognizes, on a visceral level, that the armed man is displaying intent they themselves lack.

That’s what everyone’s afraid of.  Superior intent.  All the sideways questions, all the building of better monsters is just dancing around this issue—what if he’s here to kill me?  I mean, really this time?  The recognition that this just might be so, and you can’t or won’t match it, intent-wise, is the core fear that everyone harbors.

The dull toll of fear echoing in the intent gap is what I hear whenever anyone asks one of these questions.  They’re not even consciously aware of it.  They’ll deny it when pressed.

My advice is to build your better monster—bigger, faster, stronger, meaner, armed in a dark alley.  Add in a dash of rainy, moonless night.  Pile it on.

And then become him.

— Chris Ranck-Buhr (from 2006)