One of my favorite movies of all time is "John Wick." Keanu Reeves plays a highly skilled, highly experienced assassin in a world of assassins, who goes on a journey of revenge after a mob boss's son kills his dog. This kicks off an entire trilogy where Wick's actions from the first movie continue to push him deeper and deeper into the assassin world as he desperately tries to claw his way back out.
While he's "the good guy," Wick is not necessarily a good guy. He's a professional killer. Sure, he values his friendships as much as he can, but he shows he'll even kill them if he's bound by the assassin's code to do so. The entire first movie is about killing a mountain of people to get his revenge, and the second movie ends with him unable to quell his rage to the point where he breaks the very code he sadly had to kill his own friends to keep by killing someone for payback. By the third movie, Wick's body count is astronomical, and his actions have gotten some of his friends killed along the way.
Wick's past is dark, and he continues to live in that darkness all the way up to his death.
To be clear, John Wick could probably exist in a list of my top 10 characters of all time, but he is an archetype that modern media is filthy with. Wick just happens to do the tragic anti-hero better than most other characters. Outside of Wick and a handful of other characters like him, I'm kind of sick of his archetype.
Especially in the modern era, everyone has to live in some morally gray area under the idea that it gives complexity and gravitas to the character. To be sure, it absolutely can, and these characters can be some of the best in both on-screen entertainment and written literature, but if we're constantly subjected to the same kind of character over and over again, they don't just get dull; they begin to fade into one another. Stories become predictable, and soon this dynamic archetype becomes the reason you're yawning.
Sometimes, you just want a good guy. Someone who is human and has their flaws, sure, but doesn't carry around the ghost of a dark past or is emotionally wounded to the point where morality becomes subjective through his point-of-view. I didn't know where to find that unless I went back to older movies and television shows, but then Gary from the YouTube channel Nerdrotic was going on about the latest "Game of Thrones" spin-off and how good it was.
Last night, I settled in and gave "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" a shot. I wasn't expecting much. The ending finale of "Game of Thrones" left a horrible taste in my mouth, and I was admittedly not impressed with the "House of Dragons," so my expectations were low.
What happened after that had me borderline shocked. Not in the way "Game of Thrones" used to shock people with gratuitous violence and nudity, but shocked by how warm and wholesome this show made me feel, even though it still had some of the usual "Game of Thrones" characteristics. By the end of episode two, I was so in love with the show that I felt like I'd been standing for years and just got to sit down for the first time.
Let me start by saying that if you didn't like "Game of Thrones" because of its crude moments, you're not going to like this show either, but I have a feeling the moment I said I liked something "Game of Thrones" related, you were already headed to the comments to voice your distaste of the series and you need proceed no further anyway.
But for everyone else, this show is unique in that it takes place in the gritty, sometimes obscene, and often unforgiving world of "Game of Thrones," but you're finally seeing it from the perspective of a morally good person on the ground level.
If you want a solid review of it, the Critical Drinker did a great one, and I'll let him tell you more about it, because reviewing the show isn't necessarily my aim here.
What I want to focus on is how amazingly the main character is portrayed in this world.
"Dunk" was a squire to a knight who was rough around the edges. As Dunk himself noted, his master drank, he whored, and he was never very accomplished, but he was as kind and helpful as a man of his kind could be, and he raised Dunk like a son. The knight dies, but before he does, he makes Dunk into a knight as well, and as he said in his eulogy to his master, "You only beat me when I deserved it, except the once."
Whatever the knight's flaws, he raised Dunk to be a good man, and in the "Game of Thrones" world, where good men are often punished for being good, Dunk's goodness is an asset. While many around him have that cynicism and world weariness so common in that universe, Dunk's everyman sense of right and wrong, sense of fair play and good behavior make him shine all the brighter.
It's almost as if Dunk is making a parody out of the severity of that universe just by being himself. What's more, his personality charms some into friendship, and makes those who aren't so decent hate him. It's as if goodness is allowed to be goodness, and villains are allowed to be villains.
This show reminded me how fantastic a character that is just a decent guy can be, and I really think this is something we need to see returned to media. Not just for the sake of seeing refreshing characters, but because our society sorely lacked these kinds of characters being well-written. Directors have taken cracks at it, sure. James Gunn's "Superman" is the only example I can think of that even comes close to being that kind of character as of recently, but Superman is Superman.
Dunk is you.
I can't recommend this show enough for those of you who would watch that kind of thing. Don't pass this one up. I almost did, and now I'm sorry it took me so long to get to it. This is now one of my all-time favorite shows.
