fajrdrako: ([David Tennant])
[personal profile] fajrdrako
Names aren't much matter, unless they're the right name. - Elizabeth Bear, in Ink and Steel
This quote charmed me, because it made me think how many of my heroes use names that are not their own. Sometimes (as with Captain Jack Harkness), these names are more theirs than any other. At other time, the chosen name reveals a facet of the personality that doesn't normally show - say, the young Miles Vorkosigan becoming Admiral Naismith, or the young Francis Crawford becoming Thady Boy Ballagh.

And there are heroes with no name at all, like the Doctor in Doctor Who , or the eponymous hero of Stingray - several layers of irony, there, in a show named after a man with no name but only a symbol.

Sometimes the pseudonym is an irony, such as Aral Vorkosigan being the Butcher of Komarr.

Sometimes the name is a cover whose hidden nuances reveal changes in form and perception to be reveale in a greater truth i a greater name - like Shakespeare's Prince Hal becoming King Henry V, or Meagan Whalen Turner's Gen becoming Eugenides.

And then there's the secret identity - examples where the name is known to the reader or viewer but not the other characters. The interrelationship of Batman and Bruce Wayne, or Spider-Man and Peter Parker - where the one identity hides another. And even cases (again, in comics) where the name is not a secret, but the differences between Gambit and Remy LeBeau (or between Wolverine and Logan) are clear.

PS

Date: 2008-10-17 02:40 pm (UTC)
ext_15621: The Pixel in a paper bag (Default)
From: [identity profile] rosiespark.livejournal.com
You have a cat in your icon. ::looks at you owlishly::

I mean, I have a cat in my icon. It's normal for me.

Re: PS

Date: 2008-10-17 03:04 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fajrdrako.livejournal.com
You have a cat in your icon. ::looks at you owlishly::

LOL! Nothing wrong with that! As you know. And here's another.

I consider "normal" a variable state.

Re: PS

Date: 2008-10-17 04:02 pm (UTC)
ext_15621: The Pixel in a paper bag (Default)
From: [identity profile] rosiespark.livejournal.com
A cat and a Doctor. Now, that's more normal and less of a shock. :D

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