Non-Psychopath with Criminal Leanings

I've been exposed to a lot of distress these past couple of weeks. I started reading Stephen King's The Shining and stopped at 68%, before I went on to read a less tensioned book in French, though still very intriguing (La Biographie de la Faim). A few days ago I finished that, so I went back to finish the King book. And of course, it climaxed, and got bloody, violent, and through feat of imagination, audible. I don't want to be disgusting, but the terror holds a certain thrill. I don't know what it is.

During the reading of the French book and then the conclusion of King's, I watched the second season of Spartacus, which was thrilling not because of the hordes of battle and sex scenes but because of something else, an element of drama that I hadn't considered much before - reversals. In each of the ten episodes, several reversals of power occurred, and I was engrossed enough to gasp at several of them. Surprise is useful. Reversals lead to surprise. And although I hunched that the title protagonist would not have died even though the principal antagonist hunted him down at every turn and injured him over and over again over several episodes, I did not anticipate the ends of other characters and the throwing off a cliff of some of the other plotlines. The ending made me feel a loss, the kind of emotion held in watching a ship sail into the distance over a calm sea. I rarely have reactions to television series like this - I recall having a similar reaction to Charmed's final season in 2005-2006, and in hindsight, Charmed was not even near as reversal-filled or gripping as Spartacus.

I mention Spartacus because it had its share of horrors. Blood, guts... moments when I put my hands up to my mouth in disgust at the graphic nature of the deaths of some of these extras or non-pivotal characters. I shan't mention.

Now I'm onto my next series of visual gore. I'm watching Dexter, as per recommendation by my brother. I am halfway through the first season now, and it's thrilling as well. The plotlines and the twists are interesting to follow, and the characters feel... human. Even Dexter himself, who is a psychopath and who cannot feel. There is not as much graphic gore in this series as in the aforementioned or as in Game of Thrones but there is its share. Its terror, rather, is derived from how disturbed I feel as a viewer. Disturbed at this protagonist who is trying to blend into society while carrying out his own sense of justice, hoping distantly that he may one day be able to feel love or remorse of some sort. It's fascinating to watch. He is different, marginalised, but uncaring on some critical level, non-conscience-possessing. Psychopath on the inside, so he tries to blend in, to hide in the plain of sight.

I am also watching the fourth season of Nurse Jackie, a series rife with dark humour, and weird characters. I enjoy that. It's unpredictable, and the writing of the dialogue and the scenes feels unreal, yet very human. The characters that surround the title character are peculiar - they have personal particularities that identify them when they pop up on the screen and the dynamics between them is excellent to witness. I'm impressed by this show. It doesn't distress me as much as the aforementioned, but it contains some element of humanness that I enjoy witnessing.

I can recognise myself in all of these television shows. Spartacus is full of horrible people doing horrible things to each other for power, yet their struggles and triumphs connect to some deeper nerve endings in me. Dexter continues to fascinate me, also on some human level. Nurse Jackie likewise. Charmed very much did. Even The Shining did on some everyday level. All of these fictions putty up truth in them. And although I haven't been able to describe what truths they speak to me very clearly, because I am not in the mood to analyse them, something in them makes me feel a sense of connection. I enjoy things that I can connect to, even if I cannot outright putty words together to say how.