Tevun-Krus #45 - SportPunk

@parishsp's Sportspunk Memoir

I don't know about you, but I love a good battle story.

Really though, can you tick off your top ten movies? Books? Stories? I can (I have had a lot of practice with this).

I'll save you from the list, but know this: the unifying factor in each is the shared element of conflict.

Now, this element varies. In some, it is the element of good versus evil played out over the lifetime of an unknowing child (read: I am a child of the Harry Potter Generation. Ravenclaw, in case you were wondering.) that ends in a great battle.

Or a set of stories about a brave family of children, each thrown into their own adventures of self-discovery and victory over evil: one-on-one battles, great floods, battles on the cellular level, or in towns that are a little too perfect to be believable. (Anyone else a fan of Madeline L'Engle?)

My book favorites tend to turn towards individual battles. I love when people, specifically the good guy, come out on top. Redemption is my life's song, and when I see my story echoed in writing? Man, that's where it's at for me.

But my movies? They haven't changed much over the past ten to fifteen years:

Braveheart.

Gladiator.

The Patriot.

Lately I have added the new Star-Trek movies to the list. I could watch them over and over.

It may seem like I have a penchant for good-looking men in partial clothing, who also happen to be soldiers. Or just Mel Gibson.

There may be an element of truth to that; but I think more of us than just me love these stories and movies for more than manly men or cool battle scenes. I love them all because there is a seemingly insurmountable problem—one that has us holding our breath, clenching our fists, hiding the book in the freezer—that is overcome by sheer tenacity, integrity, and bravery—usually with a little help from friends, and always with hard work and some sort of sacrifice (be it a moment of selflessness or someone's life).

So, sportspunk. A story set in a realm/world/universe/society where there is little to no violence, typically, with conflicts scheduled to literally battle it out in an arena, field, gym, track; and battle it out to the death.

My mind instantly shoots to the Roman Empire and gladiators: the masses showing up to not only witness, but cheer on, one contender versus another while they kill the other person. But in scifi form, so the arena turns into a giant, spherical spaceship with a chrome and green maze in the middle, surrounded completely by shouting spectators, calling for the blood of the competitors.

It gets me going, right? Makes my blood pump faster and my spine a little straighter. I am settling in because there is a story here and I am ready to delve in.

But it also makes me hesitate.

Why? Let me try to explain.

There is this great line from A Separate Peace where the narrator and protagonist Gene is describing his friend, Finn. For those of you who haven't read it, Finn is this larger than life, uber competitive, somewhat flighty and inconsiderate All-American young man. Gene says about him, that while Finn is out there beating everyone on the field that he doesn't realize that someone is losing for him to win.

There has to be a line drawn there, doesn't there? A place where the hero of our stories shuts off the empathy, pushes away the thoughts of constant death and danger to reach the point where they can look themselves in the mirror and get a decent number hours of sleep at night. The characters of a sportspunk story can't think of their competitors as people because then they would hesitate, be killed, and the story would end before it even begins. There are a few exceptions to this, but in most stories I have read with a sportspunk element, the competitors typically shut off their empathy valves to get the job done. Later, there would be a bit of sorrow, but this wasn't the main theme of the book. If it were, we'd be looking at a whole lot of messed-up characters in therapy instead of dominating and conquering worlds for just causes.