DENSITY=EXCESS

 This essay exists for the most part to draw a line between both 2013's THE NARRATIVE RULE OF EXCESS and its corollary from 2017, EXCESSIVE COMBINATORY FORCE, and the more recent LOVE, DENSITY AND CONCRESCENCE from 2025. In the last of these, I wrote:

because density has a stronger association than does concrescence with the quality of some physical substance, it also proves somewhat better for describing the finished product. I might say, using my most recent emendations of my potentiality terminology, that "Dave Sim's work excels at dealing with didactic cogitations, while Grant Morrison's work excels at dealing with mythopoeic correlations." That quality of excellence can be metaphorically expressed as a given work's density, in that such density shows how thoroughly the author was invested in a given set of fictional representations (sometimes, though not usually, on a subconscious level).

In contrast to my meager usage of the term "density," I probably have many references to "excess" scattered throughout this blog, since that philosophical concept was thoroughly explored by one of my major influences, Georges Bataille, particularly in the first of his works I ever read, VISIONS OF EXCESS.  In the two linked essays above, my main concern was to apply Bataille's concept to my own concepts of the two forms of sublimity. I won't get into those formulations here, for I'm concerned that excess is a general rule, like density, for judging the presence or absence of excellence in fictional works.   

The difference between the two concepts relates to authorial motive. The author who achieves excellence in one or more of the four potentialities does so because he/she becomes engaged enough with the material to DESIRE to give it a density, a thoroughness, that seems to be like that of lived experience. The creator of a poor work, within whichever potentiality one judges the work by, has no desire, or next to none, to convey investment in the material to his audience. The creator of a fair work has some desire, but only up to a point. It's only the creator of a good work who's totally invested with respect to at least one potentiality.

One example of authors investing "excess effort" in various potentialities can be seen in a comparison I floated between the Lee-Kirby FANTASTIC FOUR and the Drake-Premiani DOOM PATROL. I still believe that the Lee-Kirby work shows an excess of the mythopoeic imagination and that the Drake-Premiani work does not. However, I now realize that the later issues of DOOM PATROL put forth a density of specification with respect to the dramatic potentiality. More simply put, even though the Lee-Kirby FF set the early standard for using soap-opera dramatics, one might argue that Drake was, over time, better at finding interesting ways to exploit the dramatic conflicts of the team and its opponents, at creating the illusion of character progress. In contrast, though Stan Lee was the boss in the collaboration with Kirby, he often let Kirby "have his head"-- and Kirby was not really a "details man." On close study the sixties FANTASTIC FOUR has a rather herky-jerky progress with respect to its characters' serial development, even if Lee's dialogue usually managed to paper over any perceived discontinuities. I said that I doubted that artist Premiani contributed much original material to the collaboration; he probably just drew whatever Drake related in his full scripts. Drake wasn't often capable of mythopoeic imagination, unlike Kirby. But he conveyed a sense of density in the interrelations of the Patrol members, because that was the part of his inspiration to which he best related.              

EXCESSIVE COMBINATORY FORCE

Having recently referenced the "excess" theory last put forth in 2013's  THE NARRATIVE RULE OF EXCESS, I began wondering to myself if, having applied this standard to the mode of dynamicity, whether I had sufficiently examined it with respect to the combinatory mode as well.

I did find that I had at least mentioned the topic in THE AMPLITUDE ATTITUDE PART 3, however:

Wheelwright's term "amplitude," which he applies to differing levels of poetic resonance, suggested itself as a substitute-- partly because the word connotes the quality of being ample, and thus coheres with my formulation of THE NARRATIVE RULE OF EXCESS. 

So I have at least made the essential statement that for the combinatory mode as for the dynamicity-mode, "excess of strength is proof of strength," as Nietzsche aptly said.

This formulation might be further glossed with reference to Bataille's Nietzchean notions of "acquisition" and "expenditure," particularly since I haven't  returned to Bataille-land since QUICK CANTER ON A HOBBESIAN HORSE, written about four months previous to NARRATIVE RULE.

Time will tell if I get round to such an expansion.

THE NARRATIVE RULE OF EXCESS

My essay IN REMEMBRANCE YET GRIMM puts forth this proposition re: the narrative function of the three dynamicities:

While I have stated that characters in any given story will fall into three possible dynamicity-levels-- the microdynamic, the mesodynamic, and the megadynamic-- in terms of the way dynamicity operates in plot-narratives, the first two are practically identical. Whether a given character's dynamicity-level is "poor-to-adequate" or "good-to-fair," he is unable to reach the exceptional level of dynamicity that Kant calls "might." 

This point reinforces my conclusion from THE ETHIC OF THE COMBATIVE PART 2:

Thus "might" exists to continually challenge others to partake of its nature, rather than being utterly inaccessible...

Though I haven't invoked Nietzsche much in this regard, he does have quite a lot to say about what may be considered a parallel phenomenon, which English translations generally call "strength:"

"To demand of strength that it should not express itself, that it should not be a will to overcome, overthrow, dominate, a thirst for enemies and resistance and triumph, makes as little sense as to demand of weakness that it should express itself as strength."-- ON THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS.

And again:

"Nothing succeeds in which high spirits play no part. Only excess of strength is proof of strength."-- TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS.

With Nietzsche in mind, then, I'll elaborate the basic proposition above into a narrative rule: a "rule of excess" based in Nietzsche's logic, one that can be expressed in two parts:

(1) Megadynamicity, the level of extraordinary strength, is the narrative "proof of strength" in that its very excessiveness suggests a propensity to transcend ordinary limits.

(2) Mesodynamicity and microdynamicity, the levels of "good" and "poor" strength, cannot be used in narrative to prove the nature of strength because by their respective natures they are determined by limitation.

My two examples from SUBCOMBATIVE SUPERHEROES PT. 2 also illustrate how characters of differing dynamicities conjure forth different narrative effects, though the characters share a superficial similarity in that both are superheroes but neither is possessed of any metaphenomenal powers or weapons.  Though B.C. Boyer's MASKED MAN is clearly patterned after Will Eisner's SPIRIT, Boyer clearly does not seek to show him as extraordinary, given how often he fails to perform the standard "superhero" task of beating up at least four guys at once.  He cannot symbolize strength, because his strength is determined by consistently functioning on the level perceived appropriate for an ordinary human being.

The Spirit, as I mentioned earlier, is certainly capable of being overwhelmed too.  Eisner is replete with scenes in which he is pathetically defeated for a time:

Nevertheless, Eisner rarely has him truly reduced to the level of ordinariness for very long. 

Indeed, even when deprived of sight in one story-arc, the Spirit, recuperating in a hospital, still manages to overcome a group of thugs sent to kill him.

Now, readers who prefer their heroes "life-sized" may not be charmed by the notion that the proof of strength is one of excessive demonstration.  Some might even prefer to think of strength as defined by its humbler manifestations.  Nevertheless, such readers cannot deny the obvious appeal of excess for other readers, or blame it on "mass culture," without succumbing to total fatuity.