7. What’s the best thing about the canon you are writing?
If we're talking about DMTNT specifically, it's definitely Henry and Carina and I feel like that would be both my subjective but also the objective correct answer. I'm biased toward him, obviously, but I really love her as well. I think they're both really interesting as legacy characters, and largely well executed in and of themselves. They're faceted, they have solid motivation and individual but complementary skill sets, they're sympathetic, and easy to root for. The romance is a pretty clumsy and lackluster, which is a shame because the potential for something great is there. I live every day of my life in complete shock that there's not more affection for them. Like lack of affection for the movie I get but for them, specifically... crazy to me how many people just write them off completely. Or are just blatantly wrong about them because they chose to ignore them in favor of just deciding there was nothing of value at all. So so so sad, so very much their loss. There's babies in this this dumpster fire (which, just to be perfectly clear, I do also love the dumpster fire. I just also acknowledge it's a dumpster fire.)--
-- aaaaaaaaand it's at this point I checked the meme and realized this means. Canon character. And not canon property, because the franchise/property is what question 3 asks about. I'm leaving it though but here's the..real answer to the question it's actually asking:
Best thing about Henry is that like... that he is Henry T.urner. I think is that someone went "actually he needs to be their kid" is the best thing about him, the best move they made at any point in the creation of this movie. This is a mildly controversial take, I know, but I think tying it back was much smarter than continuing to ignore that the previous movies centered on Elizabeth and Will. I actually also like On Stranger Tides but do think it feels like.. an offshoot as opposed to main chapter, because it's so removed from the literal and metaphorical heart of the trilogy. And yes Henry's connection is so last second, and clumsy as all hell story wise there's plenty of places they fumbled with it, but just the fact that they landed with him at all is SO the right move. I would have liked him as 'Henry Maddox', I think, but would not have loved him. So that they took that and went, 'make him a Turner' and then added that bit of context to that steady, lively, warm character... 10/10. Rounded him out, brought him forward- brought him to life. Best.
Without bringing the behind the scenes stuff into it and just as a character, I think his best thing is his devotion to his people. Yes this is also a flaw but I think it's his best thing. It's, like I said while answering this question incorrectly, a very sympathetic thing. And a very sympathetic thing taken to extremes, befitting the exaggerated reality he lives in. And I guess I am gonna get meta with this answer after all but it suits him and it suits his world, especially with the way they leaned into the ghost stuff and backed off of the imperialism. He's a very storybook kind of character, exaggerated in certain ways, for a very storybook world and specifically fantastical movie. I guess this is really the same answer again in a way isn't I just think! he was the best move for this movie!!
12. What would you say is the most unique trait about your character?
In many ways he's actually very... not the modern blockbuster protagonist of the 2010s? He's got a few of the markers (a bit quippy, happy to use his fists to solve his problems, very pretty to look at) but also a bunch of behaviors you don't necessarily see like: he spends the first act specifically seeking out help rather than insisting on lone-wolfing his way through the world, his acts of bravery are genuine and sometimes counter-intuitive to his (ultimately selfish) cause, and while he is sort of the rallying party who brings several of the others together, when it comes to leading the actual quest, he defers to Carina as soon as it's obvious she has a much more concrete grasp on the specifics of what they need to do. He's an action/adventure protagonist but with all these blatant soft poke-able places and I think that stands out from both the hyper-masculine-but-ironic-and-self-aware-about-it hero and the scrawny-status-quo-challenging-underdog that dominated the pg-13 box office at the time (and arguably still). He's not an "I'm one of the idiots who lives here" snarker and he's not a "everything about how we live our lives is backwards" chosen one, just honestly and for fun and with genuine affection for the movies that came before, a legacy character who wants his parents to get their damn happily ever after. It's very.. simple? Early thousands straight-to-dvd-sequel ass concept, without the forced I'm-not-like-you conflict. And I love him for it. Thank you. mwah mwah i kiss his head.
Then there's also... and I will try not to expound on this too much but in terms of the franchise itself he's very certain in a way a lot of the other protagonist (and deuteragonist) characters in the franchise are not. A lot of them waver on their wants, and have entire moral or religious or mortality-based quandaries in the background while all the ghosts and gods carry on, meanwhile Henry is just. Dead set on what he wants and that this is also the Right thing. Not a lick of doubt. Cannot be convinced he's wrong, cannot be turned away by interference, cannot be intimidated into backing down, and is going to see it through. And do it all so straightforwardly as well— he doesn't plot, or scheme, or seduce, he just. Runs right at it. Wild thing to do in the everyone-is-playing-each-other-for-their-own-gain franchise.
20. If you could sum up your character with one sentence, what would it be?
Answered (eventually) here!
