Building on Nature

For much of its first season, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was quite pleasant without being especially memorable. I would, until “End of the Beginning,” have summed it up as “Fun while it’s on, but if it went off the air tomorrow I wouldn’t miss it.” Well, it’s been off the air for a couple of months (happily, a temporary state of affairs). And I miss it.

See, it finally drew blood in its last few episodes.

I’ve been wondering - and have come to no answer - whether the ordinariness of the first two-thirds of the season, the lack of any hint as to what the biggest twist would be, is a fault or a virtue. In terms of the practicalities of a television season, I’m inclined toward the former. I know at least one person who dropped the show halfway through because it just didn’t compel a concentrated focus. That’s not the kind of response that wins ratings battles.

On the other hand, viewing the season as a story, I found that my early apathy made The Twist a genuine sucker-punch. That doesn’t happen often. Usually, when a show is going to hurt me, I have some inkling beforehand. It still hurts, but I’m not surprised. (Russell T. Davies* is the only writer I can think of at the moment who has managed to give me both the full foreknowledge AND the full sucker-punch: “He will knock four times.”)

Whether the overall structure was a fault or a virtue, the end of the season did make me sit up and pay attention. And I’ve found myself coming back to one line in particular:

“For the first time in a long time, I wanted something for myself.”

Why that, and not “Let me show you”? Or “Guys, I found it”? (Both great.)

It’s because “I wanted something for myself” is a line I would have written, and written in a superficially similar context: a character who has sacrificed all personal desire to his/her sense of duty. Normally, I’m for that. In fact, if I were to pull one overarching theme out of my assorted fiction, that would be it. And yet here, I was mentally screaming, “And you should have gone for it!”

Because here, the sense of duty was...shall we say...misplaced. And the desire was (is?) the one thing that could conceivably correct it.

It’s a useful reminder for me that desire, in and of itself, is not the enemy. Yes, it often has to be subordinated, if not completely sacrificed, but that doesn’t make the desire bad. We were created to desire the good, and that means that our desires (always making allowances for fallen nature) can often be indications of our calling: the nature upon which grace can build. For the character in question, they most certainly are.

I don’t see my major theme changing. But perhaps I’ll think more about the desires I’m asking my characters to sacrifice. In the meantime, bring on season two!

* It’s August 23rd. It’s possible I have Doctor Who on my mind.