Severed Is Not A Psychological Thriller
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 7:00AM Psychological thriller – Characters are no longer reliant on physical strength to overcome their brutish enemies (which is often the case in typical action-thrillers), but rather are reliant on their mental resources, whether it be by battling wits with a formidable opponent or by battling for equilibrium in the character's own mind. The suspense created by psychological thrillers often comes from two or more characters preying upon one another's minds, either by playing deceptive games with the other or by merely trying to demolish the other's mental state.
Severed from Image Comics concluded this week and though initially the book received high marks on the site, but after the fourth issue I washed my hands of the series. Right here, I will warn you that if you haven’t read the entire series there will be spoilers. The fourth issue is the issue in which the character of Sam dies. The reason I have a problem with this issue in particular is that it revealed a major flaw in the story that I call “convenient writing.”
I’ll give you a movie example. 2003’s High Tension; our antagonist goes through the house killing everyone with the exception of our protagonist. She (our protagonist) cleans her room to give the impression that no one was there to begin with and at one point wipes down the interior of the sink to give it a dry, “no one’s here” look; a good idea right? Except for the fact that no one would check the sink for use to determine if someone was in a room. Yet, sure enough our antagonist walks in and b-lines it for the sink and checks if it’s dry. There you have it, convenient writing. Or another way of saying it, is when the writer forces an idea to work by adding elements to the story that are not natural to the progression of said story or characters.
With issue four the character of Sam is investigating the old man that has become so kind to Jack that he’s willing to drive him to Mississippi to find his father. She’s stolen his business card, prevented Jack from being able to leave with the old man and headed out to meet the “real” employer of the man that our antagonist is pretending to be. She heads out to a ratty ass diner in the middle of nowhere with no customers, no workers and the only person there is yet to be seen only heard from the back. Yet, she goes inside and gets herself killed. This is the same character that has gotten Jack out of being sexually molested and has lived and survived on the streets for years with a bullet in her head, yet she is easily duped by an empty diner in the middle of nowhere.
The bigger problem is for this scenario to work it means that somewhere down the line of setting Jack up from the very beginning, our antagonist also set up the entire back up plan for Sam to stumble into. A character that was completely unknown to him until seeing Jack and her performing on the street. If ever there was a definition of convenient writing… this issue is it.
We’re still dancing around the issue at hand, which is why this book isn’t a Psychological Thriller. Well, let’s break down that definition again and compare elements of the story to it. “Characters are no longer reliant on physical strength to overcome their brutish enemies” Okay well the seventh issue gives this a fail instantly. Jack uses only physical strength to overcome the monster that tried to eat him and when he could have mentally solved his problem he chose a physical alteration instead of just burning the house down. That idea only came after a third physical battle with the monster.
“Whether it be by battling wits with a formidable opponent or by battling for equilibrium in the character's own mind.” No wits where exchanged in this series. There are times when our characters figure out that they may not be in the best of situations, but wits… no. I can see someone pulling out issue six to refer to, in this regard as Jack pretends to go along with the antagonist after discovering his wallet. But again that ended with a physical alteration and convenient story telling e.g. the knife and the bear trap.
“The suspense created by psychological thrillers often comes from two or more characters preying upon one another's minds, either by playing deceptive games with the other or by merely trying to demolish the other's mental state.” This would be true if there was ever an exchange between the characters. Instead Jack is happily oblivious to his surroundings and doesn’t show any mental fortitude until the fifth issue in which his character takes a 180 degree turn. The same thing can be said about Sam’s character as well. Sure the monster has set up a long game of deception, but Jack is oblivious to it. Even after discovering his father is dead there is no reaction. At no point does Jack's mind break. He over comes obstacles as he switches into fight or flight mode, but his mind and character do not respond to anything he's discovered. That's like fooling someone, but they don't know it until you explain it to them. You can't make a fool out of someone who doesn't know it and Jack, doesn't know it.
Because our antagonist is just a monster and not a man and the story fails to meet any of the requirements of a true Psychological Thriller, it makes this series a monster story with moments of intensity. And since I’ve been told to stick with monster books “because I’m good at them” I can say with some authority that this series had a strong start when it had a bit of mystery. Once the mystery was revealed though it was just a slow race to the ending we already knew about from the very first page of issue one. An old man with one arm scared of a monster that sets elaborate traps in order to eat the dreams of children. If this is a Psychological Thriller then I’m not seeing it since most of the suspense is placed on the reader as they’re forced to wait several issues for an outcome they can see coming right from the beginning.
Reader Comments (5)
SEVERED is NOT a Psychological Thriller... It IS a Psychological HORROR - FROM WIKIPEDIA... DEFINITION OF "PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR" - "Psychological horror is a subgenre of horror fiction that relies on character's fears, guilt, beliefs, eerie sound effects, relevant music and emotional instability to build tension and further the plot."
You would be correct if I hadn't sat down and read the entire series from start to finish for a second time. We only experience Jack's fear at the beginning and end when he's an old man. The rest of the time he's experiencing rage. The Psychological fear is reliant upon the reader having fear for the character which would simply make SEVERED a horror story... and not a good one, even by the definition you've posted. The Tell-Tale Heart would be a better example of a Psychological Horror based on this definition.
Do you ever feel like sometimes other fans and reviewers just don't have as high standards as you?
Ed, yeah sometimes. I just don't have blinders on like a lot of people. I read a ton of comics weekly/monthy and I don't give free passes. Everyone is hot for Snyder due to American Vampire and his work on Batman. That doesn't mean everything he does will be good or successful. Sadly I wanted to enjoy this book more and it didn't work out in the end.
What the hell's High Tension? Ohhh you mean Haute Tension. JK