cybercarl wrote:My gut reaction is Henry the eighth but he has been done to death. Maybe this is a good thing as we all, well the majority of us know the history behind him. There's plenty of scope for dark humour, love and hatred. I suppose the naivety could come into it with his wife's and wanting a boy to pass on the reign. I don't think he is very appealing though.
Why isn't Oliver Cromwell on the list? There's something pulling me to Karl Marx as he has a good name and after reading a bit on google about him cause I know nothing about him, some of his views could be related to today's society in a backwards kinda way. I'm not sure where the love would come into it though unless it was the passions for his work.
Moses isn't even a real person so why that is on the list I don't know. I though Moses was a fairytale.
I shall pick Henry, but it is the easy option.
(:-})
Cromwell nearly made it. As for Moses, yes he might have not been real but probably not. A lot of philosophical/sociological methodologies concerning mankind's place in the universe were kicked off by biblical studies. Pr-reformation, objective thought was heavily influenced by the church and it was really the events of the French Revolution which kicked off empiricism. I felt that I had to have a pseudo-mythical figure in there purely for the alleged events surrounding him giving me the opportunity to manipulate them. Imagine if Moses were real and telling him that what he did was a load of bollox? It does not really matter what can be proved, but what we choose to believe.
I will say that this piece does not solely concern the comic value of this person in the modern day. This plot line is purely to facilitate the exploration of a relationship between the historical figure and the protagonist of the piece (possibly a homosexual relationship). Don't look too deeply in to what say Moses would do in the modern ages, his reactions to us. Its more about the reaction to him by someone who wants to exploit him and will go to any lengths to do so. Most of all, is the historical person real or is he a representation of something else? Is it a hoax of some sort? I can't really copy and paste my plan for the narrative (its over 3000 words), but think outside the box.
I wanted the challenge of having to involve a central character who I did not select and tried to make the choices as wide ranging as possible. They all had to have a basis in philosophical thought for this to work, so the narrative could be less rigid and the story is therefore more about suggestion than absolute certainties.
Thanks for the input though and as it goes, I believe Henry is the least rigid of the lot in terms of character representation so he would be a great subject. I could bring him back at any age and that is a very big clue to how I am going to deal with the challenge of getting these characters to work for me. To get the reader to accept him!
