The amount of content our minds consume on a daily basis is insane. Possibly, never before have we been such voracious consumers of content in all its incarnations: literature, movie, television series, music, apps, social media and blogs.
Or at least that’s my experience; with the bills I rack up each month I could easily treat myself to a couple of good meals out.
At the moment, among other things, I’ve been binge-watching House of Cards and listening on audio-book the second instalment of Hilary Mantel’s Man Booker-winning trilogy, Bring Up the Bodies.
Well OK, if we’re going to be pedantic, technically only the first two volumes have been published to date, but – in a unprecedented turn of events – both have won the Booker, and bets are on for the third volume following suit.
And at one point, probably late at night when these inconsequential musings tend to announce themselves, it dawned on me how similar the protagonists, Frank Underwood and Thomas Cromwell, are.
One could almost be forgiven for thinking one might be based upon the other. Both are ruthless and power-hungry. Both are nominally the power-behind-the-throne, but increasingly wielding serious power and doing nicely for themselves along the way thank-you-very-much. They are set almost six centuries apart, but could be twins separated at birth in many other respects.
Of course, one is historical, the other fictitious. Yet, one cannot but note how scheming, backstabbing, ruthless villains have always made for great narrative and popular acclaim.
And in these two cases, they have made the fortunes of their creators. House of Cards almost single-handedly brought a service provider, Netflix, into the television networks’ erstwhile-exclusive, content creation territory. Mantel’s books broke historical fiction out of its genre appeal and into the critical and popular mainstream.
Also, it’s impossible not to remark on how little the nature of evil has changed over the centuries. Cromwell, Chief Minister to Henry VIII, practically ran England, at least in Mantel’s incarnation, as there is some debate among historians on the extent of his role. He wielded enormous influence through his role as gatekeeper to the Crown and built himself a fortune in so doing, by exacting kickbacks.
He had no loyalty to anyone except to himself. Mantel often qualifies a Cromwell action by saying it would be “good for Henry… and good for him [Cromwell]”. He also used his position to keep himself sated in the female department, or “bed warmers” as Mantel calls them.
Backstabbing, ruthless villains have always made for great narrative and popular acclaim
House of Cards’ Underwood displays much the same traits. He is ruthless, faithful to no one. He is committed to his wife only in the weird, yet functional, business-pact-for-mutual-ambition that they’ve got going. His classic quote that “I love her more than sharks love blood” chillingly describes, to a tee, the mood of their relationship.
He is, also nominally, a backroom kingmaker in his position as House Leader but (spoiler alert) unrelentingly positioning himself in ever higher positions in his chess power game.
As with Cromwell, sex is never anything more than a physical necessity or a diversion (or a politically-useful tool, in Underwood’s case. No doubt Cromwell would not have hesitated to use it either, had the gender conventions of his time not made it unnecessary.
Notwithstanding these traits, or perhaps because of them, their anti-hero status makes us see them as the protagonists and perhaps root for them, or even sympathise.
Even as each of them manoeuvres and aligns people and situations to suit his interest, we read him as a lone warrior who is a cut above the rest of the dramatis personae. We are too invested in him and his story to wish him to fail. Or am I the only one to be siding with Cromwell and Underwood? Maybe it’s best not to go there…
Literature is, of course, replete with anti-heroes. I picked these two because the parallelism in their stories – the thinking and planning process, and development – felt almost eerie.
And also because our fascination with their anti-hero status never mutates into a distaste for them as characters, beyond the immediate and transient reaction to their actions (“oh no, he threw her under a train”; “wow, he had him executed just to get to sleep with his wife”).
Which is all very curious, given that we don’t usually seem to be as forgiving with our politicians and their actions. But then again, your average MP is hardly as suave as Cromwell, or Underwood.