HOSTS, HEAVENLY AND OTHERWISE

In KNIGHTS OF COMBAT AND CENTRICITY PT. 1, I argued against Nancy Springer's view that Ivanhoe was not the central character of the book named after him. I compared him to the serial hero The Spirit, saying in part:

From all my statements on centricity, it should plain that I have no problem with a main character having little color-- or mythicity-- of his own. For me Ivanhoe is as much the star of Scott's only story with the character as the Spirit is of his long-running serial adventures. Springer's metaphor of a "common thread" catches some of the sense of Ivanhoe's role in the narrative, but she apparently does not realize how often famous works may be organized around an essentially unremarkable character. The Spirit is not really any better-characterized than Ivanhoe-- Eisner tended to refer to his hero as something along the lines of a "big dumb Irishman"-- and as I mentioned above, most of the mythicity of the Spirit's serial adventures inhere in his supporting characters, just as figures like Rebecca, Richard and Robin Hood are more mythic than Ivanhoe himself.

To adjust this slightly to the new terminology introduced in the STATURE REQUIREMENTS essays,  both Ivanhoe and the Spirit enjoy the centric position because their respective authors have invested them with charisma, which is identical to the "organizing factor" I used in place of Springer's "common thread." In the case of non-serial hero Ivanhoe, his charisma is established early in the novel and remains the main organizing factor based on the "charismatic action" he takes then, even though other characters later shine more brightly. Ivanhoe doesn't even get to best the villain at the climax, though the hero's mere presence does ensure the villain's defeat.

Now, though one might say that Ivanhoe "plays host" to the supporting characters of his novel-- making him what I would call a "non-distributive" type-- the Spirit, as a serial hero, has a related but distinct dynamic. Though the Spirit is the undisputed star of many of his exploits, he plays very little role in some SPIRIT tales, sometimes appearing for no more than a single panel, having no actual impact on the story's events but still serving as an organizing factor. It should be a narrative given that no serial feature lasts long by focusing only upon the hero: usually he is required to become involved in the dilemmas of other people, whose stories take the forefront in a literal sense even if they still remain under the aegis of the star. In STATURE REQUIREMENTS PT. 5, I pointed out how the Joker provides most of the plot-action in THE KILLING JOKE, while Charlie Collins is the plot-center of the TV-episode "Joker's Favor." But I maintained that these were still Batman stories, that his charisma was only distributed to a partner such as one of the Robins.

The Spirit's only long-term partner was Ebony, but none of the Spirit's charisma was distributed to him, nor was it distributed to any of the many characters who provide the main plot-action of stories like "Wild Rice"  or "The Curse." The Spirit is thus non-distributive. There are many other ensembles that are arguably more varied than that of Batman and Robin: the three-man team of Kirk, Spock and McCoy in Classic STAR TREK, Gil Favor and Rowdy Yates in RAWHIDE, and some (though not all) of Jason's allies in THE ARGONAUTICA. However, though these ensembles are distributive in the sense that there isn't just one non-distributive character at the center of the mix, one might view the ensembles themselves to be non-distributive in comparison to a given narrative's support-characters. Thus all of the fabled TREK side-characters, despite their fame, do not receive any distributed charisma due to the original serial's concentration on its "holy trio."

Structurally, though, many exploits of THE SPIRIT are much more obvious about their status as "short stories brought under the SPIRIT umbrella" than are comparable TREK stories in which Spock, Kirk and McCoy have to involve themselves in, say, the personal affairs of the problematic lovers in "Metamorphosis." Both the Spirit and the TREK-team are non-distributive with respect to all of the (usually) one-shot characters they encounter, but the Spirit seems much more akin to the figure of "the storytelling host."

I won't try to trace the lineage of the storytelling host in modern times, but will note that one of the oldest examples of a continuing host would be Lord Dunsany's "Jorkens tales." In modern media everyone is familiar both with real-life celebrities playing the role of story-host, such as Rod Serling and Alfred Hitchcock, and with totally fictional characters created for this purpose, as with EC Comics' famed characters the Old Witch and the Crypt Keeper.

But here's the rub: though it could be argued that the presence of, say, the Crypt Keeper provides a familiar point of reference within a given narrative, he does not become an "organizing factor" because he's not actually a part of any of his stories (with the exception of one humorous "origin of the Crypt Keeper" tale). Thus none of the charismatic action from the author centers upon the Crypt-Keeper, Doctor Graves, Baron Weirwulf or any of these fictional types, except in those rare cases where they become focal presences in a given story. In contrast to the way Charlie Collins is a player in a BATMAN story, or Zephram Cochrane is a player in a "Kirk, Spock and McCoy" story, the stars of a TALES FROM THE CRYPT story like "Lower Berth" are the two monsters who join in unholy bliss-- not the familiar Crypt Keeper.