Friday, 29 April 2022

Introducing Individual Villains Into Series

The Time Patrol
(i) A collective villain, the Neldorians.
(ii) Merau Varagan of the Exaltationists introduced and captured in a single story.
(iii) A prequel with Varagan still at large.
(iv) A sequel with Varagan's female clone still at large.

Dominic Flandry
(i) A collective villain, the Merseians.
(ii) Aycharaych, a Chereionite working for Merseia.
(iii) Tachwyr the Dark, Flandry's opposite number among the Merseians.

Sherlock Holmes
(i) Moriarty introduced and killed in a single story.
(ii) A prequel with Moriarty still alive.
(iii) A sequel with Moriaty's chief of staff, Colonel Moran, still at large.

James Bond
(i) A collective villain, SMERSH.
(ii) SMERSH is disbanded but some of its former members join SPECTRE.
(iii) SPECTRE is destroyed but its director, Blofeld, escapes.

Doctor Who
(i) A collective villain, the Daleks.
(ii) An individual villain, the Master, another rebel Time Lord.
(iii) Davros, creator of the Daleks.

Observations
An individual villain can emerge from a collective villain.
There is a strong parallel between the Time Patrol and Sherlock Holmes.

5 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

That bit about Merau Varagan and his FEMALE clone stuck in my mind. What are clones, really? Simply identical twins, which we are familiar with when that happens naturally. For Varagan to have a FEMALE clone means that somehow the genetic patterns determining sex would have to change from male to female when the clone was made or "conceived." It would be so much simpler and easier to just have a male clone. But of course Anderson was assuming the Exaltationists, arising so many thousands of years to our future, would have the knowledge and means of making clones who were either male or female.

If we had seen Tachwyr the Dark more often in the Flandry stories, it would be apt to call him Flandry's opposite number. But Tachwry rose to become Protector, Prime Minister, of the Roidhun's Grand Council. Flandry was content at reaching Admiral's rank and becoming an Imperial adviser.

Ad astra! Sean

Jim Baerg said...

To make a female clone of a male would involve removing the Y chromosome from the nucleus & duplicating the X chromosome, before putting the genetic material into the ovum intended to develop into the new human female.

To make a male clone of a female would involve replacing one of the X chromosomes with a Y chromosome. You would then have to choose *which* X chromosome to keep.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Jim!

Exactly! It would be so hard and difficult, going by what we know at present, to make a female clone using cells taken from a male. And vice versa.

Ad astra! Sean

Jim Baerg said...

Difficult with current technology.
A few centuries or more from now, why shouldn't it be easy with future technology?

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Jim!

But that was what I was saying might happen--IN the future.

Ad astra! Sean