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I’ve been really into the street level superheroes: Daredevil, Black Canary, Green Arrow, etc. Watching the television shows built around them has me thinking a lot about violence as a storytelling device, how it permeates pop culture, when it’s an effective storytelling device, and when it’s not.

Violence is so very different on the page. Seeing a scene in a Charlaine Harris novel brought to life on True Blood could make a bloody moment unbearable for me to watch. Unnecessary gore can detract, particularly when it arises out of context. The street level heroes are working the same way, especially Netflix’s take on Daredevil.

The fight choreography is brilliant, definitely a driving point for why I kept watching. The excessive violence was the counter: it made it hard to stick with the series. The question I kept asking myself, as my writer brain kicked in (like it always does, pesky obsession), is whether or not the violence is essential to the story?

In some cases, I’d say no, but for Daredevil, I squeaked out a yes, even as I recoiled from the gore. Daredevil’s world is a violent one. He deals with street level crime and high level corruption. His villains range from stereotypical thugs to suited racketeers willing to get their hands dirty or worse, flip from calm to murderous, which makes them terrifying. The series infused each character with violence, with one or two noted exceptions, and where it touched a “good guy” that character is changed by their actions. Even romantic scenes keep you on the edge, awaiting the terror.

So much violence in fiction washes away the consequences, the physical and emotional impacts it leaves on the characters. Daredevil did an excellent job of letting the wounds linger, both in the form of bandages and stitches, but also in the characters’ psyches. Inflicting violence is portrayed as being as weighty as suffering it.

Been catching up on Gotham over the last week. I’ll admit I wasn’t interested when they announced it for various reasons: mostly because a adolescent Bruce Wayne didn’t sound very compelling. Gotham, as a city, has always held a fascination for me, but I wasn’t sure a show about Batman without Batman would hold my interest. I tried the first episode a while back, and wasn’t hooked enough to return, but a friend told me to stick with it, and the show has improved over time.

One thing I’ve noted is how Jim Gordon is slowly making a difference. Here and there, his altruism is shining a bit of light into a dully lit space. Characters I’d given up on as fully corrupt are responding to him a bit, showing some good under the blanket of gloom.

The sets are excellently chosen, just the right mix of modern and classic New York. There also seems a dedication to rolling the technology back just a little: about fifteen to twenty years. Cell phones are common, but the televisions are CRTs, not flatscreens. Computers don’t play a very big role in research.

The show’s true strength is in the characters, in the ways they entangle across the city’s map, and in the way those threads get jerked along. The creators are smart to have a broad ensemble to call on, and it helps that they’ve picked talented leads. I also can’t say I’m unhappy to see Renee Montoya and Crispus Allen, characters I loved from the Gotham Central comic, included. I’ll give the show the rest of the season, if only to see how they handle the main, mob war plotline.

Played a little Bloodborne this weekend, a brutal game in the Dark Souls model (and on that same engine). Like any Dark Souls game, I died. A lot. Repeatedly. The repetition is rewarded however when you learn, get smarter, and fight smarter. Bloodborne teaches you. I learned pretty quickly that werewolves aren’t to be fought in pairs.

More than the combat, the style of the game, a gothic setting, a downright creepy soundtrack (that I bought for playing during dnd), and the just overall look of it on the PS4 has me captivated.

Like any Dark Souls game, the exploration is fairly open. There are nooks and bits of landscape off the beaten path, which is one of my favorite features. It reminds me classic RPGs like Ultima or modern ones like Skyrim, where you can pick a direction and just wander (albeit while swinging an axe or firing quicksilver bullets).

Not much time for video games lately, but I’m excited to give this a deeper look.